overtraining

sparknote_s said:

..., but I do know that my legs feel dead all the time for the last week.

If in fact I have not totally overdone it (I don't think I have) and am just close to it, does this sound like enough time of recovery to get back to normal leg energy, and let my resting HR go back down (if it is even elevated)?

Your "problem" is very interesting, it sounds very familiar to what I have experienced a couple of times!

I recently did a few weeks of training with higher intensity and longer rides than normal. The last weekend I felt tired and my legs were really heavy. On the Sunday ride my legs were totally empty, but I ate a few choclates and drank sports drink, and my legs opened up during the ride. However, when I got back I felt really tired again and my breath smelled ammonia! (If you deplete your glycogen stores, your body burns more protein (your precious muscles) and in extreme(?) cases your breath can smell of ammonia).

Monday I went on a one hour recovery ride, but my legs almost wouldn't move, I was totally exhausted.

During this whole training period I had also been trying to loose weight. I mainly ate food with low/moderate glycemic index, and restricted my intake of carbohydrate in general.

When I got back from the Monday recovery ride mentioned above, I thought maybe it was time to eat some carbohydrates. I had some pasta, and all of a sudden I had a feeling of hunger like I had not had in many weeks. I ate more pasta. During the next few days I was so hungry!! I ate more pasta, bread, etc than I had in a long time. At the end of the week my legs were back!! I had been depleting my glycogen stores completely over the weeks of harder than normal training.

The depletion of carbohydrates from the body can happen over many weeks, and you might not notice it!

If I were you I would forget about your weight for a few days. Eat high-carb food for every meal. Don't limit your intake, just eat a lot of carbs and drink a lot of water. Take a few easy rides, and after each ride, have a sports drink and eat lots of pasta.

After having experienced this fatigue/exhaustiong/loss of power/empty legs a few times during the last couple of years I have started to focus much more on proper intake of carbohydrates. I have to say I am really surprised how much the right amount of carb-intake at the right time has increased my recovery. I am now training harder and longer than I ever have, with incrased recovery, very much due to focus on carbs.

If you try this, please let me know your progresss!

_________
Aaberg

Aaberg said:

Your "problem" is very interesting, it sounds very familiar to what I have experienced a couple of times!

I recently did a few weeks of training with higher intensity and longer rides than normal. The last weekend I felt tired and my legs were really heavy. On the Sunday ride my legs were totally empty, but I ate a few choclates and drank sports drink, and my legs opened up during the ride. However, when I got back I felt really tired again and my breath smelled ammonia! (If you deplete your glycogen stores, your body burns more protein (your precious muscles) and in extreme(?) cases your breath can smell of ammonia).

Monday I went on a one hour recovery ride, but my legs almost wouldn't move, I was totally exhausted.

During this whole training period I had also been trying to loose weight. I mainly ate food with low/moderate glycemic index, and restricted my intake of carbohydrate in general.

When I got back from the Monday recovery ride mentioned above, I thought maybe it was time to eat some carbohydrates. I had some pasta, and all of a sudden I had a feeling of hunger like I had not had in many weeks. I ate more pasta. During the next few days I was so hungry!! I ate more pasta, bread, etc than I had in a long time. At the end of the week my legs were back!! I had been depleting my glycogen stores completely over the weeks of harder than normal training.

The depletion of carbohydrates from the body can happen over many weeks, and you might not notice it!

If I were you I would forget about your weight for a few days. Eat high-carb food for every meal. Don't limit your intake, just eat a lot of carbs and drink a lot of water. Take a few easy rides, and after each ride, have a sports drink and eat lots of pasta.

After having experienced this fatigue/exhaustiong/loss of power/empty legs a few times during the last couple of years I have started to focus much more on proper intake of carbohydrates. I have to say I am really surprised how much the right amount of carb-intake at the right time has increased my recovery. I am now training harder and longer than I ever have, with incrased recovery, very much due to focus on carbs.

If you try this, please let me know your progresss!

_________
Aaberg

Aaberg,
this sounds exactly like what I've been doing. I increased my mileage significantly in the last 4 weeks (from 500 to 800 miles per month), and I've been tired, had dead legs, and other signs of overuse like pains that don't heal, aching joints, etc. What I've done is eat a TON of carbohydrates like pasta, oats, bread, etc, to keep my glycogen stores high. I wasn't dieting, like you, which would probably explain why I wasn't as tired and sore as you're describing. Still, this week is a recovery week, for me, and I plan to ride at 75 percent of my usual pace and reduce my mileage by about 1/3 for this week and this week, only. I will take several days completely off the bike, and allow myself to heal. With what I know about nutrition and muscle building, I take some whye protein at night before bed to make sure I'm adequately covering my muscle cell rebuilding/building needs. I'm coming along, and now at day number 3 of my rest week, I'm feeling less pain in the muscles and joints I talked about earlier, and I feel my power and stamina coming back. I used to neglect the adaptation phase of my cycling, but I'm glad I'm young so it doesn't have a nastier effect (I'm 23). I think that the similarities between he OP, you, and me are significant enough to make certain correlations/assumptions... and maybe through our inputs, we can make a concrete determination of what we should do in response to the stress we've been putting on our bodies.
Personally, I'd like to know more about sleep patterns, vitamins, hours and times to eat (and quantity), since I posted a follow up to the original post, as well, in addition to one in the nutrition forum asking about increased caloric intake vs increased riding time.
Let's see... let's see...

ric_stern/RST said:

and none of this is overtraining. you may or may not be training incorrectly, you may feel tired and you could be grumpy. overtraining has a component to it that is a continuous decline in performance, and isn't reversed with an easy week here or there.

ric

would you term it "over-reaching" as opposed to being over-trained? I'm just curious as to the difference between the two. I tend to train very intensely also, even with longer durations. I've noticed that it seems to help (me) that when I'm very fatigued due to an intense training session(s) to ride a little recovery for a day, then get back at the intensity.

I don't have the under-performance symptoms of genuine overtraining, so you're right on that score. I notice that I'm a very heavy sleeper, though. I once slept over 12 hours and that crippled my cycling later on in the day. I was gasping up the smallest of hills. However, my best performance has always followed spartan sleep patterns.

ric_stern/RST said:

and none of this is overtraining. you may or may not be training incorrectly, you may feel tired and you could be grumpy. overtraining has a component to it that is a continuous decline in performance, and isn't reversed with an easy week here or there.

ric

Carrera said:

I once slept over 12 hours and that crippled my cycling later on in the day. I was gasping up the smallest of hills. However, my best performance has always followed spartan sleep patterns.

Wow I am totally the opposite. I can do OK with one bad night, but if I am tired, I don't ride well, not weak per se. Especially for consecutive rides, I find sufficient sleep to be very important to the recovery process for me.

I found that I'm both stronger and have more endurance in the early morning and when I'm mentally tired - hence nervous. I don't get out of breath on the bike and perform far better.
A lot of sleep, however, cripples me. I feel good for the sleep but performance is notably down.

wilmar13 said:

Wow I am totally the opposite. I can do OK with one bad night, but if I am tired, I don't ride well, not weak per se. Especially for consecutive rides, I find sufficient sleep to be very important to the recovery process for me.