[Turboman]

Spent most of early winter successfully building my basic strength level.  Following a 2 week break for snowboarding I started a period of anaerobic endurance (circuits on a board).  Been doing this for 2-3 weeks with 3-4 sessions per week.  Just Recently stopped making many gains on the circuits and began feeling washed out.  I put this down to overtraining so gave myself a few days of.  It's been 8 days  now with one light session in between) and my shoulders and forearms still feel stiff and ache and generally don't feel fresh.

Anybody else suffered from this?  Surely you can't overtrain that much in 2-3 weeks, can you?

I've been drinking loads (water not ale) and eating lots of good-for-you food and getting tons of sleep but still feel the same.

Any advice?

[richdraws]

EVERYONE HAS AIDS!
AIDS. AIDS. AIDS.
Aids, aids, aids, aids, aids!

if its not the Aids, have you tried light jogging sessions 2-3 times a week. It has extremely beneficial effects on your recovery. As long as you keep the intensity of the running very low.

As far as the over training goes, just ask yourself what level of stress is in your life at the moment.
Any work, school, family stress, colds and flu, eating badly, drinking too much, doing heavy exercise can effect your recovery. Also some people simply need longer to recover from workouts. Especially intense bouldering. You may need to reduce your training to once or twice a week to begin seeing gains and progress again....




P'rhaps?

Rich

[jfw]

you might have a cold/bug

sometimes you can feel fine until you try to do something active - then you realise that you're not

i would try doing a couple more light/really easy sessions and see how you go - and be patient

and maybe when you get back to keep one session easier in your week

[Monolith]

I can't speak from the perspective of others, but from doing 3-4 sessions a week on the 45, I get completely and utterly washed out. I pretty much lose the will to want to go back to the board, hence climbing becomes a chore, hence motivation drips away.

I would reckon you should perhaps cut down on volume to a strict 3 sessions a week (try get outdoors as much as possible between the rain by substituting one of these), ensuring that your sessions have clear cut lengths (and aims?).

You might even find that 2 board sessions a week of pure quality (maybe running in between) leaves you walking away feeling that you've climbed harder and enjoyed it more. Try to do these sessions alongside your climbing peers. I really do find that this can be the deciding factor between having a productive session and having a bad one.

[Turboman]

Cheers Guys,

all good advice.  I've just been to our company medical center (a crack team of 1 doctor 3 nurses and a physio).  One mention of anaerobic training and they glazed over. Their advice was I'd overdone it going snowboarding and climbing and I needed a REST. 

Gonna go for a light jog this lunch time and see how it goes.

I just find it hard to believe I could feel this trashed after only 2 weeks of hard training.  Sure I've felt washed out before but nothing a couple of days off couldn't sort.

[lorentz]

It's old age creeping up on you mate. You're not as young as you were last year.

Apart from the boredom/motivation point that mono touched on and the immune theories of richdraws and jfw (it is the perfect time of year for bugs as we're gearing up for spring  - so your immune system might be taking precedence over your recovery system); i think it's important to learn to listen to your body - as my yoga teacher says (now where is that hippy crap emoticon? )

Basically you need to learn to distinguish between your psychological "lazy" barriers and when your body's saying enough's enough. When your feeling f@*!ed for days on end, that is a definite clue! Basically, you probably need to structure your training so that it's a bit less flat out all of the time, and a bit more peaky and troughy so that you're coming up to a peak with a specific goal or trip in mind. When you're not training for something specific, and therefore possibly lacking a bit of motivation then it's important to just keep yourself ticking over. Have a good read through some of the past threads in the d,t and i section. There's some good knowledge therein. And don't forget...

Once again I will pass on the 3 golden rules imparted on by my dobbin (as he was training with a cold  )
1. Never Train When Tired
2. Never Train When Injured
3. Never Train When Ill

[Nibile]

as soon as you get back into it, dont go back to the same routines, dont test yourself on old exercises or problems. let it go, try unusual routines, strange and new exercises, more focused on high power with long rests.
and you could also work on coordination, speed of the moves, muscular recruitment. just try everything different.
go out if you can.

[Turboman]

as soon as you get back into it, dont go back to the same routines, dont test yourself on old exercises or problems.

Very good point. The whole time I'm recovering I'm wondering how much strength I'm loosing.  I was already considering 'measuring' myself on my set piece problems.  Definitely time to get outside.

Just remembered that they have a sauna in the works gym.  Gonna try and cook the bad out of my muscles tonight

[Paul B]

How long are your sessions currently?

[account_inactive]

It is possible that you could have a cold/flu thing.  I was ill for about the whole of Jan and just felt weak all the time (weaker than normal).

Alternatively a good way to monitor overtraining is the Rusko test.

Details http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0410.htm

[r-man]

Interesting, but it's not until you get to the end that you find out:

it's not clear yet that Rusko's orthostatic methods will be totally dependable. As a result, athletes should be very careful with their training; it's always better to train too little and save one's maximal efforts for competitions wet days on the grit, trying desperately to pull on between bursts of rain, convinced that TODAY you are strong enough, you KNOW the sequence, you CAN do it, if only it would stop PISSING it down..., rather than overtrain.

[account_inactive]

The other simple method is checking your resting heart rate when you wake.  Often an increase in BPM can indicate over training

[Simon S]

Sleep patterns and mood swings are other indicators of overtraining-just ask your nearest and dearest for an accurate appraisal of your moods!
I used to overtrain pretty easily when I used to do bike racing, and it can often take some time to fully recover. I seem to remember from and old article that they reckoned on the time spent overtraining would require a similar time needed to recover.
Hope you feel better soon.

[Turboman]

How long are your sessions currently?

Strength sessions generally no more than 1 1/2 hrs.  PE sessions vary but up to 2 hrs.  Have experimented with 2days on 1 day off.  This works fine for strength work as you can isolate different muscle groups.  I think it's not such a good idea for the power endurance as second day on was nearly always worse than first.

Something in the Rusko article about white blood cells got me thinking.  Two weeks spent snowboarding were in Breckenridge, Colorado where the village altitude is 3000m and top lift is over 4000m.  I felt shite for the whole 2 weeks due to altitude.  Wonder if this has had an effect.  I remember now my first jog when I got back home felt shocking which surprised me.

Sauna was amazing.  Feeling improvement today.  Going to continue resting through weekend and reassess next Monday.  At least it looks like rain at the weekend...

[webbo]

The other simple method is checking your resting heart rate when you wake.  Often an increase in BPM can indicate over training

also a significant drop can mean overtraining rather than mega fitness.

[Houdini]

Over-training?  Balls!  Swallow it and run a mile!

[lorentz]

 
unwise words my friend.... if i spike you, you'll know you've been spoken to....

 
etc etc

[GCW]

Fork it!  There's always someone that ruins a thread.   

[lorentz]

 

 

Sorry for ruining the thread guys! I hope it recovers one day,... maybe...?

The rusko article indicated that heart rate upon waking was not an accurate method for determining over-training, but - suitably chastened - i leave you to formulate your own opinions and withdraw in a non-"Withnail" related manner.

[Dorian]

Hey Turboman. How is that training going? Still feeling washed out? Been outside much recently?