Overtraining versus Underrecovery

[Capricorn]

kind of both Swissvan: i didnt understand the concept, so did some internet research FWIW, and realized it was pretty interesting. A search on TheHub showed hubbers exclusively honed in on overtraining, and while many on this thread generalise, not without reason i must add, that it's just abuot the same thing, i disagree in that even though the end result of either situation results in the same thing, the causes and means of addressing those causes are not necessarily the inverse of the other. Take for instance external stresses during recovery periods. They cant be offset by more training, maybe only less, but that's not ideal in terms of ones objectives in the available time. This leads to underrecovery and requires a different approach to deal with.

 

So while an explicit question about the two subjects wasnt posed, i think my ignorance suffices as a call for discussion and thus further learning. Always interesting to here what fellow hubbers have to say

 

I agree with your post: AFAIK, it's very hard to measure recovery correctly, but ultimately, as you underscored, performance objectives are The Definitive measures of ones overall program.

 

I think the big problem is that we( and i refer to myself mostly here), tend to overstate our recovery strategies: meaning, 'rationalisations' wrt what constitutes sufficient sleep, use 'willpower' to overcome the resultant shortcomings, but at the end of the day, we all hit the wall because it's just not sustainable and then wonder what the hell is going on. This leads to lack of confidence, even depression and a whole plethora of other negatives. Not fun at all. Overtraining often results in obvious signs you overdoing it. Underrecovery is like diabetes: a slow killer.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Capricorn

[SwissVan]

They cant be offset by more training, maybe only less, but that's not ideal in terms of ones objectives in the available time. This leads to underrecovery and requires a different approach to deal with.

 

So while an explicit question about the two subjects wasnt posed, i think my ignorance suffices as a call for discussion and thus further learning. Always interesting to here what fellow hubbers have to say

 

Often we will try and cram in more training, its that " I'm not doing as much as so n so or I have to do more" feeling which results in a increase of training time and a decrease in recovery time and sometime family / work time which increases the stress which often decrease the sleep time...... back to round and round the mulberry bush again....

 

One approach to combat this is to do more quality training and cut back on "junk training" i.e. plan training sessions that employ specific routines / intensity and take less time, leaving you more time to recover.

Edited March 21, 2012 by SwissVan

[LOOK695]

Would a powermeter be able to "tell" whether you are over trained or under recovered?

[Capricorn]

IMO, no, not on it's own. But if your power is off it's norms, then it's a starting point to identifying why you are missing your performance targets.

 

OT or UR normally implies a list of symptoms, one or more of which u should be diagnosed with before being able to say you are suffering from one or the other. While OT can be diagnosed in physical terms, it requires chemical analysis (break down of muscle and elevated levels of insulin being two examples). Under recovery AFAIK, cannot be similarly determined, and remains IMO, the most subjective of the lot. But, looking back at what you are doing during recovery and for how long, i think someone who is clued up can very easily point out which u are suffering from: If you day is full: work, training, social etc, i'd say you are suffering from under recovery. But that's my uneducated opinion.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Capricorn

[Minion]

IMO, no, not on it's own. But if your power is off it's norms, then it's a starting point to identifying why you are missing your performance targets.

The power meter allows you to accurately track your training intensity. After that, you can do a whole lot of interesting data manipulation to estimate the training load, recovery, fitness etc. Dr. Andrew Coggan created the Performance Management Chart as a simple visual way to do this.

It doesn't specifically tell you if you're overtrained, but it will tell you that you're approaching a point where there's an increased risk of it happening and you should consider resting.