Many people i train are recovering over trainers. I think there are many different reasons these people were overtrained in the past. My goal for these people is to decrease overall volume, improve recovery efforts and get them to calm the fuck down and be still for a little while… Sorry i get fired up when people pace while working out.
The list below is not an all inclusive list but its a good place to start when assessing yourself and your own program.
- You spontaneously start crying during or after a workout.
- Your _____ has started bothering you when you do ____. (insert body part and specific movement) This can be an example of overtraining specific movements.
- You don’t sleep well even though you are really worn out.
- You are in a constant state of soreness, even after 2 days off where you only ran a little and did some interval work but it was short…
- Your heart rate is elevated above your normal resting heart rate right when you wake up. How would you know this? Well… start taking your heart rate. A more simple test can be found here. Its kind of a high tech tap test.
- Training is not fun. Motivation is Low.
- You are not hitting PR’s after extended training cycles and followed by recovery weeks.
- Your attitude starts to go south in general. You may need to consult your clients or significant other on this one.
- Add your own here…
I take pride in pulling people out of over reaching or over training slumps and setting them back on the healthy training track. I don’t want anyone to feel like i don’t push my folks to over reach periodically cause my people will gladly tell you how sadistic i am but also understand that i give them adequate recovery as well as responsible workloads to accomplish their specific goals.
You want to eat any/everything that crosses your path without regard for nutritional value…and you don’t even care.
No. I don’t know anybody like this. Lol
Ha..I know which one(s) applies to me!
I like the spontaneous crying one.
I think my proprioception in general was crap when I was in a state of overtraining.
Good post dutch!
Everything and anything seems to take a little more energy then you have to give.
During higher rep workouts, you wonder if counting by 2′s is acceptable.
You don’t have energy for yoga-not even corpse pose.
Your chronic headache never goes away, merely changes severity from a dull ache to want to stab your eye out with a butter knife.
What about feeling sleepy all the time? Even after 7 hours of good sleep, waking up like you could sleep for another hour or two?
Great post Dutch!
I can definitely pick out 3 points from when I was overtrained. I use to hate rest days. But now I love them. I workout just for the rest days.
I have a scenario and question for you… You have an athlete at your box that is showing signs of overtraing. You take him/her aside and express your concerns and the risks involved with overtraining. You even set up a schedule for the athlete to follow that would help to minimize the risk of overtraining. The athlete seems to be responsive to what you are saying and takes a day off. But comes back the day after the rest day for a WOD then a few hours later does a WOD on his/her own elsewhere. This athlete continues to train 6 days a week with doing 2 WODs per day for 4 or 5 days and 1 WOD on the sixth day. You have talked to this athlete, who is gifted and possesses great skills, several times since the initial conversation and get to the point that you are so frustrated that you just want to say, “F#ck it” and turn your back. But you can’t find it in yourself to do that.
If I owned the box that is referenced above I would not hesitate to instruct the athlete that he/she is not allowed back to the gym until he/she is rested. I am not the owner and bit I have put the buzz in his ear.
My question is… What would be the best way to deal with this athlete?
Or how about: You injure a different body part every month and can’t remember the last time you felt 100% during a workout?
Second last sentence should read… “I am not the owner but I have put the buzz in his ear.”
Dawson,
Good question.
I usually take a more passive approach. I say that until someone complains about performance increases, i stay out of their life. Some people just love this stuff so much that they want to do it ALL the time.
As soon as they complain about performance (My deadlift wont go up or my mile time is getting slower…) i step in and say “If you don’t listen to me, you won’t improve.
Quite honestly, some people don’t want to be helped and for some its a lost cause. At the same time if you care about keeping this person around long term in the gym you have to exert your training thunder and lay down the law. You can’t control what people do outside the gym so you have to help them understand why what they are doing is wrong. Every situation is different here so you have to choose your approach carefully. Sometimes challenging people to NOT train works but like i said each case is individual. Also, using the 50 mile expert works too. Standby for a post on the 50 mile expert.
Dutch
Nice post! Thanks for all the great tips! I added a link to this post from my blog FuncThat.com: http://www.functhat.com/2010/06/overtraining-tell-tale-signs/
There is no such thing as overtraining, you will adapt to anything if you keep pushing your body over time.