One defining characteristic of exceptionally high-performing riders is their ability to handle significant physical training stress. Measuring this stress can be done in various ways, such as tracking weekly mileage or hours on the saddle. Professionals often accumulate around 500 miles and spend 25 hours on the bike per week, showcasing the level of commitment required. We previously discussed the Training Stress Score (TSS) as a more precise measure that considers workout intensity alongside duration. Pros typically maintain an average of 150 TSS per week during the season, an impressive number.
It’s common for non-professional athletes to perceive the pros as being from a different world, as they often don’t face the same life stressors. Juggling a full-time job, family responsibilities, and financial obligations while training places additional demands on your body and mind. The ability to manage these stressors plays a vital role in your training journey.
While we are focusing on physical stress resulting from training, it’s essential to acknowledge that mental and emotional stress should also be taken into consideration. Psychologically stressful events may necessitate reducing training load or even taking a break. Stress affects the whole person, regardless of its origin, and the body reacts similarly in response to stress, regardless of its source.
The renowned endocrinologist Hans Selye proposed two types of stress: eustress and distress. Eustress refers to healthy stress, which denotes a manageable training load that leads to increased fitness. On the other hand, excessive training becomes distressful and can result in overtraining. It’s important to understand that stress, as Selye described it, encompasses both mental and emotional aspects. Managing and balancing these stress types is crucial for achieving a healthy and high level of fitness.
Finding Your Limit: Risk and Reward
Have you ever pushed yourself so hard that you ended up injured, sick, burned out, or unable to achieve your desired performance level? These situations relate to the interplay between risk and reward in your workouts.
Risk pertains to workouts and training methods with a high potential for breakdowns due to their strenuous nature. Frequent breakdowns indicate that your training load is unnecessarily stressful, or you’re crowding manageable workouts too closely together. It’s crucial to strike a balance by ensuring your training load is challenging without being excessive.
Reward, on the other hand, refers to the positive outcomes of appropriately stressful workouts that lead to fitness gains. To reap these rewards, it’s necessary to maintain a training regimen that combines high but manageable risks. Avoiding risk altogether is unlikely to yield significant progress. In contrast, being overly conservative in training can hinder your fitness gains.
Balancing risk and reward requires wisdom, patience, and commitment to your training plan. Striking the right balance involves gradually increasing the intensity and load of workouts, allowing your body to adapt and grow stronger over time. Managing the density and frequency of high-dose workouts is equally crucial to prevent breakdowns and facilitate adaptation.
Remember, occasional high-risk workouts are necessary to stimulate performance gains, but they should be approached with caution. Careful attention to your body’s signals, along with proper recovery and adaptation periods, can help you manage risk effectively and achieve steady progress.
Avoiding Overtraining: Striking the Balance for Optimal Performance
The term “overtraining” is often thrown around loosely by serious athletes, claiming to experience it frequently. However, true overtraining, or overtraining syndrome, is a complex and poorly understood condition in which the body becomes overwhelmed by the stress of training, leading to a state of distress. More often than not, what athletes actually experience is overreaching—an early stage of the progression that can potentially lead to overtraining syndrome.
The key distinction between overreaching and overtraining lies in the body’s ability to recover. When overreached, despite feeling exhausted, adequate recovery is still possible, allowing the body to adapt and grow stronger. In contrast, overtrained individuals face inadequate recovery, resulting in a decline in performance and fitness, even with a high training load.
While overtraining syndrome is a serious condition, it is paradoxically something that high-performance athletes must flirt with in order to reach peak fitness levels. Balancing the line between overreaching and overtraining is a necessary risk for achieving optimal performance. The challenge lies in knowing how to push the limits without crossing into the realm of breakdowns. This delicate balance is at the core of high-performance training, and mastering it is crucial.
Overtraining syndrome is not easily defined due to its diverse and variable symptoms. However, common indicators include fatigue and a decline in athletic performance. It’s important to note that these symptoms can also occur in cases of overreaching without necessarily progressing to overtraining syndrome. When experiencing deep and lingering fatigue, along with other symptoms listed in in the table below, it is essential to consult with a physician to rule out other medical conditions that may present with similar symptoms.
The progression from deliberate overreaching to negative overtraining syndrome is a delicate one, influenced by factors such as individual hormonal strengths and weaknesses, as well as the nature of training—particularly the interplay of workout duration and intensity over several weeks. Timely intervention and rest, especially during scheduled recovery breaks, play a significant role in preventing overtraining. These breaks allow for the shedding of accumulated fatigue and serve as an opportunity to assess fatigue levels and overall well-being.
Managing overreaching requires a vigilant approach to stress and rest. By paying close attention to one’s response to training stress, particularly by asking the question “how do I feel today?” on a daily basis, it becomes possible to gauge the need for recovery. If tiredness persists for several consecutive days, regardless of the training phase or upcoming races, it is crucial to prioritize rest. The minor fitness loss resulting from temporary recovery is far more preferable than the significant fitness decline that can occur with overtraining.
Periodization plays a vital role in managing stress and recovery. The inclusion of planned recovery breaks ensures that training does not push the body into an overtrained state. By alternating hard training days with recovery days, periodized training emphasizes both adaptation and recovery. This deliberate approach to stress allows for controlled overreaching while mitigating the risk of overtraining. More of this in the next post, Fatigue, Recovery and Adaptation
In summary, training stress is a double-edged sword. While our desire for increased fitness can push us to the limits, it’s crucial to exercise patience and avoid excessive greed. Overreaching is a normal and necessary part of high-performance training, but it must be managed through frequent recovery and a well-designed training plan. Striking a balance between stress and recovery is the key to avoiding overtraining and achieving optimal performance.