Overtraining: How to Avoid It, How
to Recover From It
By Gabe Mirkin, M.D.
One of the most serious problems in training
for athletic competition is to know when you
are training too much. You make a muscle stronger
only by stressing that muscle, feeling sore
on the next day, and taking easy workouts
or days off until the soreness goes away.
Then you are supposed to take a hard workout
again. If you do not feel soreness on the
day after a hard workout, you have not injured
your muscles, and they will not become stronger.
Every athlete knows that sometimes
your muscles still feel little sore several
days after a hard workout. You may think
that you have recovered from your previous
hard workout and you think you are ready
to stress your muscles again. So you go
ahead and try to run very fast and you
start to feel sore all the time. Your
joints, muscles and tendons ache. You
feel tired. You can still run with the
soreness in your muscles and tendons,
but the soreness prevents you from running
fast. Each succeeding day, the soreness
increases and you think that you are sick.
Your doctor order a complete blood count,
liver tests, BUN, creatinine, urinalysis,
and a throat culture, and all the tests
come back normal. You find that you can't
run your intervals as fast as you could.
You used to be able to run 10 quarters
in 65 seconds and now you can't get through
more than three of them without your muscles
feeling very sore. So you try running
your quarters in 75 seconds and find that
it hurts just as much to run 75 seconds
as the 65-second quarters did. You know
something is wrong, so you ask your friend
who is a researcher at the local university
to test you. He tells you that you have
impaired anaerobic lactacid performance
and a reduced time-to-exhaustion in standardized
high-intensity endurance exercise. He
tells you that your maximum heart rate
is now 180, 10 beats lower than normal.
He tells you that your lactate levels
are lowered during sub-maximal performance.
You have a reduced respiratory exchange
ratio during exercise. You are quite depressed
now and you get further tests only to
find that you have normal blood urea nitrogen,
uric acid, ammonia, creatine kinase and
ratio between (free) serum testosterone
and cortisol. Your nocturnal urinary catecholamine
excretion is down and there is a decrease
in the maximum exercise-induced rise in
pituitary hormones, especially adrenocorticotropic
hormone and growth hormone, and, to a
lesser degree, in cortisol and free plasma
catecholamines. So you decide that you
have a hidden lymphoma, but a complete
diagnostic workup is normal and you are
stuck with a diagnosis of training too
much.
You have to go back to background training.
Jog on the days that you can. Take days
off when you feel sore. After several
weeks, you are able to start jogging again
and your muscle start to feel fresh again.
You are ready to start training again,
but first you must promise yourself that
you will never try to run fast when you
feel soreness in your muscles and tendons.
You will set up a schedule in which you
take a hard-fast workout, feel sore on
the next day, and then go at an easy pace
in your workouts until the soreness has
completely disappeared. You may set up
a schedule to try to take a hard workout
every third of fourth day, but you will
skip a hard workout on the days that you
feel sore.
Most runners plan to run very fast once
a week and long once a week. You recover
faster from a hard workout by doing nothing,
but jogging slowly on recovery days causes
more fibrous tissue to form in your muscles
so that they are more resistant to injury.
Don't calculate total miles per week in
your diary. That will encourage you to
pile up junk miles and prevent you from
learning how to run fast. You can run
in races only as fast as your fastest
workout intervals. Set up a program in
which you run very fast on Wednesdays
and long and brisk on Sundays and all
your other workouts are easy recovery
ones.
Take one day a week to learn how to run
fast. Most people do it in the middle
of the week on Wednesdays. Most marathon
runners cannot run fast for more than
100 yards, so you should not run 200 yard
intervals until you can run 100 yard intervals
at a very fast pace. Mark the track in
quarters: in the middle of the goal posts
and fifty yard lines. Then alternate running
110 yards fast and comfortably, and jogging
110 yards until your legs start to feel
heavy and stiff. Don't try to run through
the stiffness or you will take weeks to
recover. If your legs are exceptionally
sore, take the next day off. If they are
not sore, jog slowly until you start to
feel tired. Jog easily within yourself
on the next two or three days .
On Sunday, you're going to try to gain
endurance. Your endurance day should be
quite fast, but not as fast as your interval
day. Each Sunday, try to work up to where
you can run fairly fast, but within yourself
for up to two hours. Of course, you may
have to start out with a long run of only
30 minutes, but be patient. Lack of patience
causes overuse syndrome. As for your Wednesday
workout, when you can run at last 20 repetitions
of 110 yards fairly fast, try do repeat
220s, and as the weeks progress, work
up to repeat half miles.
Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk
show host for 25 years and practicing
physician for more than 40 years; he is
board certified in four specialties, including
sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds
of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com
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