I don't know how to stop. Overachievers, HELP!!

KathleenKP

My body needs a break, but I don't know how to do it. I'm afraid I won't get back to where I am now with my exercise. I'm not hurt or injured yet, but I know I need a break so I don't get there. How do I do it? I will get up after 3 or 4 hours of sleep to go swimming, because I am afraid if I miss one workout, it will be easier to miss the next one.

I LOVE exercise, and have always done at least several workouts a week. Now I'm in training for my first triathlon. I work out 8-14 hours a week, usually 11 or 12. I do take one day off a week from workouts, usually.

This is a personality issue that spills over to my exercise. I am always moving, never take a break... I have worked for almost 15 years at my current job, and I have never taken a sick day even when I should have been hospitalized.

So, how do I take a break, keeping in mind that I have that triathlon coming up? I have a 5K in a month, and the triathlon two months after that. Do I just take a couple days off? Or cut back? (Example, I swim, run, bike, weight lift...three days a week each. Should I cut each of those back to two a week for one week?). I also do Zumba, and I'm comfortable letting that go for a while. I know I'll come back to that.

Cyclink

As someone who spends 10 to 12 hours on the bike each week, I get it. I'm also following a very carefully designed plan and monitoring my performance and reactions very closely.

There's a very simple concept to understand: you get fitter during the rest that follows exercise, not during the exercise itself.

By training too much, you are adding more strain before your body has repaired and refueled from the previous workout, lowering your performance.

It's totally possible to train 14 hours a week and be in amazing shape, but it takes a lot of careful planning and monitoring. If you are not winning your age group, then your training is more quantity than quality, so you're not even getting out of it what you're putting into it.

KathleenKP

With the repair/rest...I have at least one day rest between each workout of its type (so I run three days a week, with at least one day off in between, same for swimming, bike, and weights).

That is a good point about quantity vs quality, with "winning in your age group". I really need to consider this. Here's my problem: runnng and bike are new to me, so obviously I'm not in a winning category for those. With swimming and weight lifting, I'm usually the top female in the gym doing that, although there are certainly other women much better than me in both areas. I do swim on a (small) team. One guy is faster than me, and he tried out for the Olympics. I'm not even close to his league. One other guy is close to me; who is faster depends on what we are swimming, although I think he is just ahead of me. We are all very close in age. Everyone else is a lot slower than us. My coaches want me to start competing because they are sure I'll be placing. I've looked at local triathlon rankings, and I could be top, or close to it, for the swimming portion. For the running and biking, I'm hopeless at this point. VERY slow.

I don't think I'm overtraining for any individual thing. It's just the total of all my exercise is a lot. I kind of feel that I'm at beginning time effort level/involvement for most of those things, which is why I don't know how or where to cut back.

Cyclink

There's an important subtlety that you are missing: your fitness increases when you resting from ALL exercise, not when you are just doing some other exercise.

If your body is worn out from swimming, cycling may allow those muscles to rest but still places a drain on your body.

It's the difference between localized fatigue and general fatigue. Cardio is not like weight lifting where working different muscle every day counts as resting.

With the results you are seeing, I would focus just one swimming and forget the other sports. There's no prize for winning one leg of a triathlon. Why be OK at 3 sports when you can be great at one?

meeper123

Try some yoga it will be restful and good for your body why not take a few days a week and do this instead

NewCaddy

I have no idea about training -- not going to pretend I do....but you need more sleep. Your body cannot function on 3-4 hours of sleep.

Good luck.

jlapey

How on Earth do you people find the time to exercise this much. Do you EVER sleep?!?!?!?! There are just not enough hours in a day for me. I'm envious.

crystalflame

Athletes take a full week off every 12 weeks or so. I went 18 weeks straight without a break, suddenly hit a massive backslide in my lifting ability, and ended up sitting in my car sobbing after one particularly awful workout because I couldn't handle the thought of doing this the rest of my life. Take a break before you reach that point. It's really discouraging and ugly.

As to how: Just take a week off. If that's too scary, take 3-4 days off entirely, finish the rest of the week with light cardio or yoga, and don't lift. You should feel a lot better after that week, and you can resume your training schedule right where you left it. It won't set you too far back on your 5K, if it does at all - it took me a week to ramp back up to my race pace.

KathleenKP

Thanks, Crystalflame. It helps to read your story. I don't think I could do a week off, definitely not from everything. But maybe I could miss a couple days. I'm going to have to plan this...

KathleenKP

Cyclink - the triathlon is a life-long personal goal. I won't be doing it to win it, but to prove to myself that I can learn something new, keep at it, and push myself until I can obtain it. I'm working on increasing my speed in the running. Swimming will always be my thing, and I will swim and lift year- round. After the summer, I'll likely scale back on the running and biking, and keep the intense triathlon training more seasonal.

My problem is compounded by needing to still lose weight, so that I can't eat as much as I need to easily fuel all this exercise. But I figure this is the place where people can relate to that issue.

Cyclink

You absolutely can eat as much as you need to to fuel the exercise. The key is that you will lose weight more slowly using small deficits, maybe only 200 to 300 calories per day, leading to losing 2 to 3 pounds per month.

More than that will cut into your performance, especially if you are looking to increase your performance in so many different activities at the same time.

I just spent the winter losing almost 30 pounds while making significant increases in speed. It can be done as long as you have the time and the right combination of training and nutrition.