Topic: Adrenal Fatigue / Depression / Overtraining

[TheRedReaper]

Khoi,
 
Here is a paragraph I was reading today in a book. full book is here if you want to read it.
http://luizfernando.info/files/PPST.pdf
 
Overtraining.
Overtraining is the cumulative result of
relentless high-volume or high-intensity training, or both,
without adequate recovery, that results in the exhaustion of the
body's ability to recover and adapt. The primary diagnostic
indicator is a reduction in performance capacity that doesn't
improve with an amount of rest that would normally result in
recovery. Although the accepted (ACSM) definition of
overtraining holds that recovery from it requires no less than
two weeks, overtraining is relative to the level of the trainee,
and there are no hard and fast rules governing its onset or its
abatement. Even a heinous abuse of a novice with an
overwhelming workload, one that induces a loss of
A question of balance performance ability, would
resolve fairly quickly. Although the
time frame would be compressed, the symptoms observed by
the coach would be those of overtraining. Although
overtraining in the novice can occur, it may not be easily
diagnosed because the magnitude of the loss of performance
might be difficult to perceive, due both to a lack of training
history for comparison and the low level of performance
overall. Once again, as with overreaching, the
overtrained intermediate fits the commonly accepted
ACSM/USOC definition: an overtrained intermediate will not
be able to recover in less than two weeks. In the advanced
trainee, however, recovery is never planned to be complete for
a minimum of four weeks anyway, and for the elite trainee, it
may be considerably longer than that. The existing definition is
inadequate for these trainees. It is also easier to diagnose
overtraining in advanced and elite trainees, since the
performance reduction is quite noticeable against the
background of an extensive training history and, presumably,
an established rate and pattern of progress.
A working definition of overtraining that applies to all
levels of training advancement requires a better way to quantify
recovery time in each stage. Overtraining occurs when
performance does not recover within one reduced-load
training cycle. The duration of that cycle will vary according
to the athlete's level of advancement. For example, if a novice
training every 48 hours has a workout that is markedly off due
to excessive load in the previous workout, this will be apparent
during warm-up. His range of motion will be decreased due to
the soreness, and his bar speed will be noticeably slower and
more labored as the weight increases through the sets. The
coach should then stop the workout, having determined the
problem (in the last workout he did five extra work sets while
another trainee was being coached in the other room, for
example) and sends him home with orders to rest until the next
Practical Programming workout 48 hours later.
He comes back in for his next
workout, and warm-ups reveal that he is fine today, recovered
and capable of the sets he should have done the previous
workout. He was overtrained, and now he is recovered. This is
possible because he is a novice, and this recovery time frame is
consistent with a novice's ability to recover, both from normal
overload and from overtraining, since the mechanism is the
same.
If an advanced trainee on a four-week cycle of loading,
declines from expected levels during a cycle, either the athlete
has come into the cycle overtrained or the current cycle has
exhausted recovery capacity. In such a case, four more weeks of
reduced training load will be required to facilitate recovery. For
both the novice and the advanced trainee, a repeated and
dramatically reduced load cycle of equal duration should
immediately follow the diagnosis of overtraining in order to
reestablish homeostasis. Elite lifters using very long training
cycles can ill afford the time required to deal with a
programming error that might take months to notice, and even
longer to correct.
Overtraining is yet another example of the differences
between novice and advanced athletes, in that the more
advanced an athlete becomes, the more costly overtraining
becomes. A novice might be inconvenienced by a missed
training goal, but that inconvenience lasts for a couple of days,
and is of no concern outside the narrow bounds of a beginner
without any clear competitive aspirations and no consequences
to anything other than the next workout. Intermediate athletes
have committed to their training to the point of selecting a
sport, and are in the process of becoming competitors. An
advanced athlete is by definition always training for a
competition, has invested many thousands of hours, many
thousands of dollars, and many gallons of sweat in training up
to this point, and has much to lose as a result. Elite athletes
A question of balance may have titles,
sponsorship money, endorsements, and postcompetitive
careers riding on their performance at the next
competition. As careers advance, so does the price of failure,
even if it is temporary.
Is consideration of overtraining important? According
to the USOC/ACSM Consensus Statement on Overtraining,
10 to 20% of all athletes are suffering from overtraining on any
given day. This is a problem. H o w many coaches can afford to
have 20% of their team performing below par on game day?
Having a significant number of athletes overtrained at any
given time has important ramifications for team success, as well
as for the careers of the individual athletes. The culprit here is a
lack of appropriate application of the principles of exercise
programming to the training of athletes.
Diagnostic signs of overtraining in non-novices are
severe, when finally apparent: obviously compromised
performance, disrupted sleep, increased chronic pain, abnormal
mood swings, elevated heart rate, change in appetite, and other
physical and mental abnormalities. However, not all trainees
will display the same symptoms even if they become
overtrained on the same program. Once again, the coach's eye
is essential in determining changes in the performance and wellbeing
of the trainee. Once overtraining is diagnosed, it is
imperative to take remedial action, as longer periods of
overtraining require longer periods of recovery. It quite
possibly can take as much as twice as long to get a trainee out
of overtraining as it took to produce the condition. Horror
stories about severe overtraining abound, with examples of
athletes losing entire training years. No effort must be spared in
recognizing and treating this very serious situation.

[TheRedReaper]

Khoi,
 
I think what I missed before might have been a failure to consider the types of training some people are doing. I think over training is more likely to occur when you are a very advanced lifter and are training heavy weeks and light weeks.
 
The reason I did not consider this was because I always train heavy. But when I start dropping lifts (and realize I am at risk of over training and having my rep max fall) I immediately respond by reducing the amount of sets I did on the previous days training in my program so I can do more on the next days.
 
If you train like this, you immediately see the results of fatigue, so it's easy to avoid over training.
 
Though people who train a heavy week full of many 1RMs and then successive light weeks afterwards, they have less way to gauge if they're over training. The reason is, on the light weeks when you're supposed to recover, you are not being pushed too hard, so you don't know the situation as you've little to gauge it by because all your sets are fairly easy. Then you get back to your heavy week, and all of a sudden you cannot perfom as you wanted due to pushing yourself too hard.
 
Like this, an athlete might be over training for an entire month before they realize it. Then they're focked and cannot do the RMs they were expecting.
 
So I suppose, looking at it like this, over training is entirely possible for those who have light weeks and little ways to gauge their general fatigue that is pulling them away from the 1RM they have not performed for weeks.
 
My adivce would be to find a way to gauge your overall fatigue. If you are doing successive light or medium weeks back to back, then have a day in the middle where you just do your 1RM in you major lifts just one time. If you achieve it, keep going, it's all good. If you fail to achieve it, lay off a bit as you are too fatigued - just an idea. I'm no pro. But I've been reading a lot and am trying to figure this out myself.
 
See you.

[Arturo Gómez]

I think that the last question, is interesting to see from the point of view of control of process.
If you make your better record, is good, but if not, how much kilos less is an indicator of problems (fatigue, disease)?
An idea is "control intervals". Out of extremal causes, the weights (detrended) have a normal distribution with a mean and a standard deviation. This allows the statistical control of the semanal record or the mean of the maxima lifts in the week.If these index are out of the fixed intervals, we may look for a cause for the problem.

[TheRedReaper]

Well yes. I really just mean you need to find an accurate way of measuring performance. So that when any unexpected drop occurs, you can respond immediately. I do 1RM very often. So that's the easiest way for me to measure and is what came to mind.

[movmasty]

Has anyone here ever pushed it too hard and burned out? If so, I am interested in hearing your experiences. There was a time in the past where I literally maxed out on a daily basis. Sometimes, I would train for 3-4 hours in this fashion. I'm not sure what happened, but after 3 months or so, I literally cracked. It took me an extrememly long time to recover. Probably over a year. Close to two. Maybe even two. In the present moment, I can't even tell if I'm back to "normal", whatever normal is.

I know some of you might've trained with a bulgarian philosophy.

This could happen when one reads some semplicistic paper for some bulgarian expert, obviously "train always at the max" is not a real strategy.

[movmasty]

I'm sure some of you have heard of John Broz. Well, he believes that there is no such thing as overtraining. I think some people have been infleunced into believing this also

Pushing hard, or relatively hard is required to get stronger. How many of you think it's possible to always be pushing? Or is this a really stupid idea? Will you body and brain adapt? Or will you just go through depression, which actually I heard shrinks your brain?

Honestly, I'm not sure what I am supposed to be asking. I guess I'm interested in getting as possible in a very short time frame. Some of you may know clarence0 on youtube. He started maxing out daily and is now at a 155 kg snatch and 195 kg clean and jerk. It took him around 2-4 years I believe. Wouldn't majority of us get destroyed either mentally or physically from training like this?

Are you sure that this clarence0 or any hard trainer is telling the truth?
Vasily Alekseev to hide his methods of training fooled people into believing that he trained underwater!

Overtraining, like injuries, is not an accident, but a normal thing happening without a careful programming.

Is not true that Pushing hard is required to get stronger, the body grows every time you train, and the first rule to train hard is regularity, train every day, every week, every year,
This make a champion!

Of course you need also heavy workouts......once a week, or also once in two weeks, and then comfortable training, without bite the bullet, but you dont have to miss one!

No need to get your guts out, but one year of steady training will do miracles, and two years one double miracle.

[Arturo Gómez]

[size=78%]I think that "follow a preplained training without a feedback and a process control" is the bad estrategy.[/size]
If the train is more intense (as the bulgarian is) greater are the risk.


I am intereseted in know, in the case of "crack with bulgarian system", the following:

-the crack was subitous or it had a gradual process?
-with the training, was there a improvement in olimpic lifts greater than in squat?

[movmasty]

I think that "follow a preplained training without a feedback and a process control" is the bad estrategy.

And who told to not have a  feedback control ??

Any plan has to be adjusted every day.