overtrained but big race in 1 week

chook1 said:

Hi, hoping someone can help me. I have had a long season, been racing really well until about a month ago. Since then, trying to train but my legs are always feeling tired, no matter how easy i take it.

I know I am due for a break, but have an imporant race in a week, which i have been waiting all year for, and am keen to perform well in.

Can someone give me some advice regarding the best tactic for the coming week:
- Should i not train at all?
- Should i ride but take it easy, all E1 stuff?
- Should I train normally, try and do a few hard sessions?

thanks in advance. Would be great if any coaches out there can offer some tips.

If you're overtrained then don't even bother racing. By definition of overtraining (unexplained underperformance syndrome) you'll ride like a bag of spanners, and unless you were previously sandbagging before you're going to take a hammering in your race. Of course, you may just want to ride the race for 'fun' (although i don't see any fun in suffering and taking a kicking).

i'd hardly think that training normally and doing hard sessions would be the way forward... seems like a recipe for complete disaster.

maybe a few easy spins, and then see whether you feel better over the next few months. You need to plan your training better, or consult with a coach who knows what they're doing, to prevent this in the future.

oh! and keep your carbohydrate intake up.

ric

chook1 said:

Hi, hoping someone can help me. I have had a long season, been racing really well until about a month ago. Since then, trying to train but my legs are always feeling tired, no matter how easy i take it.

I know I am due for a break, but have an imporant race in a week, which i have been waiting all year for, and am keen to perform well in.

Can someone give me some advice regarding the best tactic for the coming week:
- Should i not train at all?
- Should i ride but take it easy, all E1 stuff?
- Should I train normally, try and do a few hard sessions?

thanks in advance. Would be great if any coaches out there can offer some tips.

Tour of Bright?

ric_stern/RST said:

oh! and keep your carbohydrate intake up.

Really dumb question: how solid is the science behind this advice? While I realize that there's tons of evidence that carbohydrate intake acutely improves performance, what do we know about its ability to chronically impact an athlete's ability to sustain a training load, and/or forestall staleness and overtraining?

kmavm said:

Really dumb question: how solid is the science behind this advice? While I realize that there's tons of evidence that carbohydrate intake acutely improves performance, what do we know about its ability to chronically impact an athlete's ability to sustain a training load, and/or forestall staleness and overtraining?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=2055827&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

I think its hard to over train. every time i thought i was over training or reaching it was due to inadequate carbohydrate consumption. not to say your not over trained, but like Ric said look at your carb intake.

ric_stern/RST said:

oh! and keep your carbohydrate intake up.
ric

Can someone point to some guidelines for Carb intake. I use a Powermeter so something that relates Kj to grams CHO if that's what make sense would be interesting. Up until now I have tended to target 70% CHO in my diet when I train hard, but want to make sure I'm not doing something stupid.

acoggan said:

ncbi.nlm.nih.govquery.fcgiOpen ↗

Thanks for the link. However, 4 weeks isn't my idea of "chronic." With respect to the topic at hand, it isn't a long enough time frame for true "overtraining" (as the term is commonly used) to kick in. I realize it's almost impossible to study trained athletes over a long enough time course, not least because of the impossibility of getting them to comply with a standardized training protocol and diet. But is there *anything* on the order of at least 6 months? Rats? Untrained subjects? Correlational data? Thanks

watts4speed said:

Can someone point to some guidelines for Carb intake. I use a Powermeter so something that relates Kj to grams CHO if that's what make sense would be interesting. Up until now I have tended to target 70% CHO in my diet when I train hard, but want to make sure I'm not doing something stupid.

70% by mass or energy? What total calorie per day? What is the rest composed of? Micronutrients?

chook1 said:

Would be great if any coaches out there can offer some tips.

When was last time you took two days off? How many days off do you think you need? What was last week made of? training wise?

Roadie_scum said:

70% by mass or energy? What total calorie per day? What is the rest composed of? Micronutrients?

For example today: 1000Kj LT interval session. I assume a non-workout day is about 2000Kj which works pretty well. I eat 70% of calories from CHO, 15-20% from protein, and 10-15% from fat. As far a micronutrients, sorry I don't track that, but I don't eat junk food and usually have lot of veggies. I weigh 68Kg.

watts4speed said:

For example today: 1000Kj LT interval session. I assume a non-workout day is about 2000Kj which works pretty well. I eat 70% of calories from CHO, 15-20% from protein, and 10-15% from fat. As far a micronutrients, sorry I don't track that, but I don't eat junk food and usually have lot of veggies. I weigh 68Kg.

I might have done the maths wrong, but I think on a workout day that works out as 7.7g/CHO per kg bodyweight, which is pretty damn good (should be 6-8g/kg), and plenty of protein too (1-2g/kg). Micronutrients should be fine if you eat a varied diet with plenty of vegies, legumes, nuts, etc. I assume you mean a non workout day is 2000 kilocalories, not kilojoules. A 1000kj interval session will burn about 1000 kcals when you take into account human efficiency of about 18-24%.

All sounds like your nutrition is pretty dialled. I would also wonder about timing - you should be eating during rides of an hour or longer, 40-100g CHO/hour (~.8-1.2g/kg bodyweight + or - a lot depending on your gut and metabolism, type of ride, etc), and directly after, ~1-1.5g glycaemic CHO/kg bodyweight over the 30-60 mins post-ride, beginning immediately after you stop. Also a small amount of protein. Minimise fat. Minimise fibre both during and immediately post ride.

Rough guide:

1kj on your powermeter = 1 kcalorie of food (normally just called a calorie).

1g CHO = ~4 cals/kcals
1g PRO = ~4 cals/kcals
1g FAT = ~9 cals/kcals

Hope this helps. Without doing too detailed an analysis, it sounds like you're on the right track. Good luck.

PS: On big training days (>2000 kj) I tend to eat what looks like semi-unhealthy food for a non-athlete. Eg coke, sweets, white bread, white flour pasta, sugary sports drink, etc. Less fruit, veg than normal. Eating high fibre nutrient dense food on these days tends to compromise my ability to put down enough CHO. Also, for the same amount of energy burnt, I normally eat more CHO after a relatively more intense session than a longer slower session. I think I do this naturally (I am just inclined to eat more sugar/pasta/etc) but it also makes sense physiologically. I try to eat more stereotypically healthy food on days where I burn fewer calories.