Overreached or overtrained
HilTri
Posts: 378 Member
Here I am again exhausted, totally depleted with no desire to exercise. I think that the last three years of hard training have finally beat me up. I have a constant headache, my muscles and joints ache. I was over doing it and not getting the results I wanted so I drove on harder, faster, longer and got further from my goals. I feel foolish and I should have known better.
I am taking hikes, walks and catching up on home projects like pressure washing and sealing the deck, eating well, drinking more water than usual and resting. I am getting a COVID test tomorrow to rule that out.
If anyone has any suggestions on getting through this, how long it will last and tricks of the trade, I am all ears...
I am taking hikes, walks and catching up on home projects like pressure washing and sealing the deck, eating well, drinking more water than usual and resting. I am getting a COVID test tomorrow to rule that out.
If anyone has any suggestions on getting through this, how long it will last and tricks of the trade, I am all ears...
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Replies
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I’m going with overtraining. You have posted a lot of discussions about your training and not getting desired results. You are wearing yourself out.
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L1zardQueen wrote: »I’m going with overtraining. You have posted a lot of discussions about your training and not getting desired results. You are wearing yourself out.
I know...I am embarrassed. I should have known better. Thanks0 -
I'm not too familiar with your past post or your training but if you could post a bit of that here, I think we could come up with some solutions to get you back on track.
The "no pain, no gain" days are a thing of the past. It sounds like you need some restoration. It sounds like you're in a neurological sympathetic overdrive.
Could you post a little bit about your training and what you're doing as far as load management goes? What are the goals of your training? Nutrition? Recovery methods?
I just want to get a snapshot of all of this as it would be easier to then give you a little more guidance.0 -
Have you had blood work done recently? I got fairly lean recently and after an 8 week cut.
I had insomnia issues, wonky cycle, and blood work showed that my thyroid levels had lowered. Switched to reverse diet and feeling much better after 3 weeks and maintaining the lower weight.
Good luck.0 -
My primary is spin. I ride (rode) 6-7 days per week,60-120 min vigorous riding (endurance and interval) indoors on a spin bike. I do other cardio 4-5 times per week before I lift weights. I hike one to two days per week. I eat well. I usually burn 1000-1600 calories per day. I usually eat ~2000. I drink 130-150 oz water or electrolytes. My diet is more Mediterranean than anything. I eat well, loads of good stuff. Inbody says my BMR is ~1500 body fat 13%. I am female, 50 years old, 130 lbs and 5’6”.0
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That’s a lot of cardio. No wonder you’re exhausted. Excessive cardio can raise cortisol levels bc of the stress it puts on your body. I was running four miles a day on top of a five day lift split and my body responded better when I stopped running and just walked 3 miles on treadmill. 13% is probably also very hard to maintain. Is that why you’re doing so much? To maintain that level of leanness?4
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I would agree and say that's a lot of cardio. However, the caveat there is if you are doing it for a specific reason such as performance related then it may be necessary to do that amount but we should look at how you are structuring your loadout.
Depending on your goals and training history, you don't necessarily have to cut back because obviously it would fit into your training cycles if you're doing it for competition or sport but if you're doing it simply to maintain a lean body mass then I would say there are other ways to go about it.
Do you use any sort of tracking devices for physiological stress? Do you train with a heart rate monitor?1 -
That’s a lot of cardio. No wonder you’re exhausted. Excessive cardio can raise cortisol levels bc of the stress it puts on your body. I was running four miles a day on top of a five day lift split and my body responded better when I stopped running and just walked 3 miles on treadmill. 13% is probably also very hard to maintain. Is that why you’re doing so much? To maintain that level of leanness?
I like being lean but for me, the way I was doing it at least, isn’t possible for me to maintain.0 -
Have you had blood work done recently? I got fairly lean recently and after an 8 week cut.
I had insomnia issues, wonky cycle, and blood work showed that my thyroid levels had lowered. Switched to reverse diet and feeling much better after 3 weeks and maintaining the lower weight.
Good luck.
I had my thyroid checked and while my TSH dropped it is now on the low end of normal.0 -
A full blood workup is always a good idea. If it's in the budget, you should look into an organic acids test. There are a lot of things going on under the hood that we don't know much about until we're able to see it. I asked about some sort of physiological tracking because although it's not bulletproof, it can help to give a small bit of guidance.0
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It's the cardio. Same thing happens to long-distance runners. Rule of thumb if you want good results: Stimulate DON'T annihilate.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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My primary is spin. I ride (rode) 6-7 days per week,60-120 min vigorous riding (endurance and interval) indoors on a spin bike. I do other cardio 4-5 times per week before I lift weights. I hike one to two days per week. I eat well. I usually burn 1000-1600 calories per day. I usually eat ~2000. I drink 130-150 oz water or electrolytes. My diet is more Mediterranean than anything. I eat well, loads of good stuff. Inbody says my BMR is ~1500 body fat 13%. I am female, 50 years old, 130 lbs and 5’6”.
Obviously you need to look at your overall training and recovery but the bolded jumped out at me.
If I remember correctly you teach Spinning classes rather than just participate so that's hard to reduce but what exactly is this additional cardio before you lift actually achieving for you?
What fitness goal does this match? Does this give you a real benefit? Or perhaps it's adding to your training load without real benefit.....
Additionally I'd wonder if cardio before weights compromises or assists your lifting.
e.g. When I want to do hill repeats on my bike I can either cycle an hour each way to the big hills but that's pretty much junk miles for no benefit to my training plan. Or alternatively I can sling the bike in the car and do the hill training fresh and have a high quality focussed training session. Quality not quantity if you like.
As you keep bouncing off the same over-training/under-recovering issue you really do need to have a serious think and make lasting adjustments. Not just to recover now but to prevent it happening again. First thing to remove is junk exercise that gives you no benefit but adds to your fatigue and I'm wondering if this cardio before weights is a good candidate?
I'm ten years ahead of you and although my exercise volume is very high I do have to admit that as I age my recovery needs more attention. Joe Friel's Fast After 50 is a fascinating read and his ideas around periodisation and perhaps considering 8 or 9 day training weeks to improve recovery might strike a chord with you.
PS - As a counter-point to the instinct to always try harder when exercise performance drops monitoring my RHR helps me. Fatigue is a feeling and I will tend to ignore it but a rising resting heart rate is data that can indicate under recovering and I will tend to take more notice of data rather than feelings.6 -
The cardio I do before lifting I on a machine at the gym (elliptical, treadmill or ARC trainer). I do it to work different muscles than cycling, perhaps overkill like Sijomial and Ninerbuff said. I want to get excited to train again, I loved it so much and now it isn’t something I look forward to.
I think I will get a blood work up to check my numbers. I will definitely order Friel’s book. Until I feel better and want to exercise, I am continuing to take time off, it’s been a week and I’ll see how I feel in another week. Thank you all.0 -
How much sleep are you getting?
The other thing that comes to mind is that you're just not fueling adequately and are probably short on carbs.2 -
I get 7-8 hours of sleep and because I am wiped out, usually a nap for 1-2 hours per day. I have wondered about the carbs.0
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Lately I do cardio before I lift, however I ONLY lift for one bodypart a day. That usually means I won't work it again for a week. Mind you, I'm not trying for any more hypertrophy nor trying to increase my strength substantially. I'm pretty much where I want to be sans a little more bodyfat.The cardio I do before lifting I on a machine at the gym (elliptical, treadmill or ARC trainer). I do it to work different muscles than cycling, perhaps overkill like Sijomial and Ninerbuff said. I want to get excited to train again, I loved it so much and now it isn’t something I look forward to.
I think I will get a blood work up to check my numbers. I will definitely order Friel’s book. Until I feel better and want to exercise, I am continuing to take time off, it’s been a week and I’ll see how I feel in another week. Thank you all.
But from what you're doing, I don't feel you're giving your body enough time to recover. I would scale back on the cardio some. That doesn't mean not to do something, but instead scale it way down. To like walking or something less intense. See how that goes.
I get the "well it doesn't seem like I'm really working out" mentality when you scale back after years of doing it hard, but I have to be honest. AGE DOES MATTER for things like this.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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BMR of 1500 and eating 2000 means netting 500 before counting daily living and exercise. Way under fueling.5
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I know it probably sounds ignorant but I certainly do t want to gain weight and despite my efforts it is happening.0
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You’ve been down this road before I think?
In addition to everything @sijomial said about assessing your training, I’d like to ask what, if anything, are you using to monitor your training load and recovery status?
I went down this road during my last marathon training. Massive fatigue, I simply couldn’t complete my runs or other workouts, I couldn’t sleep and I lost all desire to train. But the kicker wasn’t all of that my resting heart rate (normally around 55) had climbed into the mid 70’s, my heart rate variability (normally in the 50’s) had dropped down to the low 30’s, and my fasting blood glucose (normally in the 80’s) was close to 120.
Aside from the symptoms above-I felt “fine”. My training load wasn’t anything I hadn’t done before, but there were some extenuating factors in that particular training cycle. I needed far more recovery than I was getting. My training load was continually increasing (as it does in the deep part of marathon training) with not enough cutbacks for what I needed.
This was all on paper-all documented in various systems and all the tools I use to monitor what is happening. I knew what was happening, but continued anyway for my own calculated reasons.
It took several months for me to get back to a baseline. Months. Of minimal, non-goal focused training. To get back to a place where I even wanted to train, and where I even had enough oomph to run vs slog, and move even moderate amounts of weight without being sidelined with DOMS for a week. Months.
If you’re not monitoring anything related to physiological markers and/or training load, it’s probably a good idea to start. They told me what was happening long before I started to have any real problems.2 -
I know it probably sounds ignorant but I certainly do t want to gain weight and despite my efforts it is happening.
Cortisol will do that (water weight). It's one of the very well known signs of over-training. If your weight goes up out of line with your calories again it's a sign you should take heed of.
I know I can provoke exactly that stress response with about 5 or 6 weeks hard training together with a calorie deficit in the lead up to an event - but that's peaking for an event and not my normal routine.
If your normal routine is doing that your training load is too much for you.
You have to find a better balance and to do that you have to align your training priorities with your goals and priorities. Which means dropping things that don't give you a decent return on investment. "Work different muscles than cycling" isn't really a fitness goal. To achieve what? (More fatigue by the sound of it!)5 -
Thanks all. Yes, I have been down this road before or I never got off the road meaning I didn’t come back all the way and here I am again. I am going to request a lab panel and clean up my workouts to that which gives me a return. I got on the bike today (30 min beginner ride) after a week off and I am not there yet, more rest, more hikes and more food. I also lifted weights, lower weight than my norm. That felt pretty good.0
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sijomial is correct here. Exercise is good stress, but if you are constantly stressing the body, then your cortisol levels won't ever lower.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition 2 -
Thanks all. Yes, I have been down this road before or I never got off the road meaning I didn’t come back all the way and here I am again. I am going to request a lab panel and clean up my workouts to that which gives me a return. I got on the bike today (30 min beginner ride) after a week off and I am not there yet, more rest, more hikes and more food. I also lifted weights, lower weight than my norm. That felt pretty good.
I was in a bad spot in my trip down this road. But my timeline was marathon in early February. I continued through my situation because I knew this was my end date (and I had gotten to a point prior to my real troubles that we could do some adapted training and still make this work).
Despite an extended and extremely conservative taper, I woke up on race day feeling like I had run 20 miles the day before (which was about the norm at that point-which felt “fine”). I finished the race-about 45 minutes slower than expected.
I did nothing for a month except light walking and yoga. Ate at or above maintenance. Quite a bit of full resting, napping and not much else. Almost no change in any of my markers.
It was May before I was able to consistently workout and know that I would actually finish whatever workout was planned. These weren’t significant workouts and I didn’t always want to (I don’t mean the normal “I’m just not feeling it today but I know it’ll be fine when I get going” - I mean active resentment to training kind of don’t want to). All numbers were still off the mark (RHR was still around 70 vs mid 50’s normal).
By June I was actually doing training again. I could do some lifting (and have it be productive). I was able to run and not have it always be a slog. RHR was in the upper 60’s.
By July, I was back in full swing and training well and with enthusiasm. By the end of July, my fasting blood glucose was finally back to normal, RHR was just about to the 50’s, and my HRV was in the upper 40’s.
So still not quite back to “normal” but close. After 6 months. And from my research; I’m not at the extreme end.
Then I decided to train for an ultra (under special circumstances for this year only) so my recovery has flatlined. It’s almost October and I’m still “recovering”.
I know my situation is mine and yours is yours, but you may want to really consider that a week or two may be a little less than you need to really get your stress hormones and things back to what is normal. A week or two is probably fine if you catch it early. If you’re at the point you’re at, I’m not sure you’re at “early”.
And mine was brought on by temporary training load. Yours seems permanent. Really heed @sijomial advice and consider your training load and your goals. No one can do it all forever without a break. Even elite’s have an off season.0 -
Under nutrition. IF your BMR is 1500 (and that’s another discussion), your NEAT is even higher, so you need to eat 1000-1500 above that (based on your exercise burn) just to keep even with your body’s energy needs, so 2500-3000 daily. I suggest you do that for 3 months and manage your exercise as others have mentioned, before spending time & $ on lab work and doctor visits.0
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I know it probably sounds ignorant but I certainly do t want to gain weight and despite my efforts it is happening.Cortisol will do that (water weight). It's one of the very well known signs of over-training. If your weight goes up out of line with your calories again it's a sign you should take heed of.
I know I can provoke exactly that stress response with about 5 or 6 weeks hard training together with a calorie deficit in the lead up to an event - but that's peaking for an event and not my normal routine.
If your normal routine is doing that your training load is too much for you.
You have to find a better balance and to do that you have to align your training priorities with your goals and priorities. Which means dropping things that don't give you a decent return on investment. "Work different muscles than cycling" isn't really a fitness goal. To achieve what? (More fatigue by the sound of it!)
Another vote for the scale increase being due to retaining water from increased cortisol.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/dietary-restraint-and-cortisol-levels-research-review.html/
...a group of women who scored higher on dietary restraint scores showed elevated baseline cortisol levels. By itself this might not be problematic, but as often as not, these types of dieters are drawn to extreme approaches to dieting.
They throw in a lot of intense exercise, try to cut calories very hard (and this often backfires if disinhibition is high; when these folks break they break) and cortisol levels go through the roof. That often causes cortisol mediated water retention (there are other mechanisms for this, mind you, leptin actually inhibits cortisol release and as it drops on a diet, cortisol levels go up further). Weight and fat loss appear to have stopped or at least slowed significantly. This is compounded even further in female dieters due to the vagaries of their menstrual cycle where water balance is changing enormously week to week anyhow.
And invariably, this type of psychology responds to the stall by going even harder. They attempt to cut calories harder, they start doing more activity. The cycle continues and gets worse. Harder dieting means more cortisol means more water retention means more dieting. Which backfires (other problems come in the long-term with this approach but you’ll have to wait for the book to read about that).
When what they should do is take a day or two off (even one day off from training, at least in men, lets cortisol drop significantly). Raise calories, especially from carbohydrates. This helps cortisol to drop. More than that they need to find a way to freaking chill out. Meditation, yoga, get a massage... Get in the bath, candles, a little Enya, a glass of wine, have some you-time but please just chill.
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Duck_Puddle wrote: »Thanks all. Yes, I have been down this road before or I never got off the road meaning I didn’t come back all the way and here I am again. I am going to request a lab panel and clean up my workouts to that which gives me a return. I got on the bike today (30 min beginner ride) after a week off and I am not there yet, more rest, more hikes and more food. I also lifted weights, lower weight than my norm. That felt pretty good.
I was in a bad spot in my trip down this road. But my timeline was marathon in early February. I continued through my situation because I knew this was my end date (and I had gotten to a point prior to my real troubles that we could do some adapted training and still make this work).
Despite an extended and extremely conservative taper, I woke up on race day feeling like I had run 20 miles the day before (which was about the norm at that point-which felt “fine”). I finished the race-about 45 minutes slower than expected.
I did nothing for a month except light walking and yoga. Ate at or above maintenance. Quite a bit of full resting, napping and not much else. Almost no change in any of my markers.
It was May before I was able to consistently workout and know that I would actually finish whatever workout was planned. These weren’t significant workouts and I didn’t always want to (I don’t mean the normal “I’m just not feeling it today but I know it’ll be fine when I get going” - I mean active resentment to training kind of don’t want to). All numbers were still off the mark (RHR was still around 70 vs mid 50’s normal).
By June I was actually doing training again. I could do some lifting (and have it be productive). I was able to run and not have it always be a slog. RHR was in the upper 60’s.
By July, I was back in full swing and training well and with enthusiasm. By the end of July, my fasting blood glucose was finally back to normal, RHR was just about to the 50’s, and my HRV was in the upper 40’s.
So still not quite back to “normal” but close. After 6 months. And from my research; I’m not at the extreme end.
Then I decided to train for an ultra (under special circumstances for this year only) so my recovery has flatlined. It’s almost October and I’m still “recovering”.
I know my situation is mine and yours is yours, but you may want to really consider that a week or two may be a little less than you need to really get your stress hormones and things back to what is normal. A week or two is probably fine if you catch it early. If you’re at the point you’re at, I’m not sure you’re at “early”.
And mine was brought on by temporary training load. Yours seems permanent. Really heed @sijomial advice and consider your training load and your goals. No one can do it all forever without a break. Even elite’s have an off season.
Duck_Puddle, I really appreciate you taking the time to tell me your story. You sound exactly how I feel. I don’t want to work out and I KNOW I really need more time off. I want to be honest with myself and really take the time I need no matter the duration. I am prepared to lose some muscle and maybe gain some weight too. I really don’t want to but my health is more important than vanity.0 -
Under nutrition. IF your BMR is 1500 (and that’s another discussion), your NEAT is even higher, so you need to eat 1000-1500 above that (based on your exercise burn) just to keep even with your body’s energy needs, so 2500-3000 daily. I suggest you do that for 3 months and manage your exercise as others have mentioned, before spending time & $ on lab work and doctor visits.
Lorrpb thank you. What do you mean that BMR is another discussion?0 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »Thanks all. Yes, I have been down this road before or I never got off the road meaning I didn’t come back all the way and here I am again. I am going to request a lab panel and clean up my workouts to that which gives me a return. I got on the bike today (30 min beginner ride) after a week off and I am not there yet, more rest, more hikes and more food. I also lifted weights, lower weight than my norm. That felt pretty good.
I was in a bad spot in my trip down this road. But my timeline was marathon in early February. I continued through my situation because I knew this was my end date (and I had gotten to a point prior to my real troubles that we could do some adapted training and still make this work).
Despite an extended and extremely conservative taper, I woke up on race day feeling like I had run 20 miles the day before (which was about the norm at that point-which felt “fine”). I finished the race-about 45 minutes slower than expected.
I did nothing for a month except light walking and yoga. Ate at or above maintenance. Quite a bit of full resting, napping and not much else. Almost no change in any of my markers.
It was May before I was able to consistently workout and know that I would actually finish whatever workout was planned. These weren’t significant workouts and I didn’t always want to (I don’t mean the normal “I’m just not feeling it today but I know it’ll be fine when I get going” - I mean active resentment to training kind of don’t want to). All numbers were still off the mark (RHR was still around 70 vs mid 50’s normal).
By June I was actually doing training again. I could do some lifting (and have it be productive). I was able to run and not have it always be a slog. RHR was in the upper 60’s.
By July, I was back in full swing and training well and with enthusiasm. By the end of July, my fasting blood glucose was finally back to normal, RHR was just about to the 50’s, and my HRV was in the upper 40’s.
So still not quite back to “normal” but close. After 6 months. And from my research; I’m not at the extreme end.
Then I decided to train for an ultra (under special circumstances for this year only) so my recovery has flatlined. It’s almost October and I’m still “recovering”.
I know my situation is mine and yours is yours, but you may want to really consider that a week or two may be a little less than you need to really get your stress hormones and things back to what is normal. A week or two is probably fine if you catch it early. If you’re at the point you’re at, I’m not sure you’re at “early”.
And mine was brought on by temporary training load. Yours seems permanent. Really heed @sijomial advice and consider your training load and your goals. No one can do it all forever without a break. Even elite’s have an off season.
Duck_Puddle, I really appreciate you taking the time to tell me your story. You sound exactly how I feel. I don’t want to work out and I KNOW I really need more time off. I want to be honest with myself and really take the time I need no matter the duration. I am prepared to lose some muscle and maybe gain some weight too. I really don’t want to but my health is more important than vanity.
Sadly, there’s not a lot to do other than rest and time. You have to stop the stress (working out to that degree) so your body is no longer stressed-then you have to let it all normalize again. Hormones can take time - especially if they have been wonky for a long time.
I was so absolutely spent and overwhelmingly fatigued after my race that rest was a relief. It wasn’t my first heavy training cycle nor my first marathon-I knew that fatigue but this was something different.
I gave a passing glance to worries about losing fitness and gaining weight, but once I actually started resting (for real), I felt so awful that I no longer cared and just wanted to feel mobile and productive again. I wanted to WANT to workout.
And all in, I didn’t gain, and I didn’t lose much fitness. And in all honestly, you can’t train effectively in that condition anyway-so it doesn’t really matter (like you can’t keep what you have because your body simply can’t manage it-so you’ll lose it even if you don’t rest because your body can’t keep up as it is).
And on the calories-where did all these numbers come from? I’m asking because based on what you’ve given, you should be dropping weight like a hot potato and should have been for quite some time-but it sounds like you’re maintaining (aside from this recent issue which is nearly certainly from the cortisol)? If you’re planning to rest/recover/lower the volume/intensity, you’re going to want to have a good handle on your calorie needs without 1000+ calories of exercise a day. And 1500 BMR (or something) + 1000-1500 exercise plus normal activity plus eating 2000 should be putting you in a very significant deficit. If you’re maintaining on that, then at least something in that equation is off a little - and you’ll want to get that straightened out before you drop the amount you’re burning in exercise.0 -
Duck, that is exactly what I want...to function normally and to want to not just exercise again but I want to crush my workouts like I did before instead of watching my FTP decline.
I have had approximately 4-5 In Body measurements done, that is how I arrived at my BMR, I got the 2000 calories from my BMR and eating some of my exercise calories back from the 1000-1500 exercise calories. Granted there is room for error. I have my activity level set at very active however, I am going to adjust it for this period of rest.
I am a retired Marine ( I got a TBI and was medically retired). In April, I moved to a small town to be closer to my parents. I taught spin before I moved but there aren’t decent gyms with spin rooms here so I am no longer teaching. Fitness filled my days and I dread having too much time on my hands. I am doing projects around my new house, resting and taking hikes or walking.0 -
I'll shoot fora dietry issue. Not eating enough to account for your energy expendeture. This combined with poor rest cycles.0
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