Overtraining and Progress
When you started your new training program you made some really
quality gains. But now, you have been training for a while and you are
noticing more fatigue, more irritability, and generally are feeling less
motivated than when you started. What do you do? Do you keep plugging
away at it, or is this a sign that something more is going on inside of
your body. Perhaps it is time to take a visit to the Performance Bank.
What is the Performance Bank?
The performance bank is an analogy; an analogy describing the relationship between training volume, intensity and fatigue.
If you are reading this article with the intent of receiving a
summary of all of the research on overtraining and training-induced
fatigue, stop here. If you are reading this article to further your
understanding of overtraining, gain practical insight into the pros and
cons of overtraining, and talk about stuff that will make you big and
strong; well my friend, you have come to the right place.
How does training and stress relate to something so far-fetched like the bank?
Well, let’s start from square one.
Periodization starts by viewing each individual workout as a stress.
Workouts that provide overload are a bigger stress than workouts within
your comfort zone. Not surprisingly, overload is the main principle
behind strength training, and rightfully so. We need overload to
progress, and therefore we need to place ourselves through a stressful
stimulus to facilitate adaptation. At its core, overload is the goal of
every athlete in every sport because overload essentially tells the body
that it needs to improve at something. Now, there are two ways of
obtaining overload, through quality, and through quantity. When periodizing and designing a training program I view overloading through quality as an increase in training intensity (defined as % of 1RM), and overloading through quantity as an increase in volume
(defined as sets x reps x load). From here we can dive into some fancy
periodization jargon, and really begin to understand the basis for
periodization and the creation of training-induced fatigue.
Programs emphasizing higher intensity and lower volume are referred to as intensification phases. In contrast, programs that emphasize higher volume and lower intensity are referred to as extensification
phases.(2) The intensification and extensification programs are the two
basic theories that we use in the periodization of training to create
an overload response. We can overload an athlete through training
intensity, or we can overload an athlete through training volume.
Regardless of the path that we take, we are putting our body through
stress, which leads us back to how to manage fatigue.
I like to view fatigue as the bank. Every time you go through an intense workout you are changing your balance with the bank. What happens when you have bad credit? The bank will start to take things from you.
Just like in real life, excessive fatigue can begin to take things
from you. In particular, excessive fatigue can begin to take your
performance from you. The worse your fatigue/debt gets, the more the
bank is going to take away from you. Before long you will find yourself
with increased levels of anxiety, lack of motivation, and showing signs
of other symptoms of depression. These are the symptoms of overtraining,
but how do we combat them? More importantly, how do we leverage them to
our advantage? (2)
Repaying the Debt
When you repay the bank in real life everyone is happy. You get to
keep the roof over your head and the bank has their money – life is
great. When you repay the performance bank everyone is happy as well.
You feel good and you are prepared to perform well, this is where we
want to be on competition day. The only issue is that we can’t
continuously stay well-rested during training, if we were, that would
either indicate that we were recovering perfectly with no cumulative
fatigue from day to day, or that we weren’t doing enough to stimulate
adaptation. Simply put, if an athlete were to be well-rested year long,
there are only two explanations, they are either invincible, or they are
not training hard enough. Nobody is invincible, so really we only have
one option, the athlete isn’t training hard enough.
Not training hard enough means a lack of progress, and progress is the name of the game when it comes to training so that means that we have to embrace the fatigue associated with it.
There are two primary models that explain the relationship between
training and fatigue, the one-factor model and the two-factor model of
training.
One-Factor Model
The one-factor model, otherwise known as the single-factor model, is
an adaptation of Selye’s GAS model. In short, there is a depleting
response (training), a regenerating response (rest), and a
supercompensation response (gains). From here there are three different
outcomes that occur.
- Involution – time between consecutive training stimuli is too long, supercompensation is lost.
- Maladaptation – time between consecutive training stimuli is too short, performance decreases and supercompensation is not achieved.
- Optimal – time between consecutive training stimuli is just right, allowing for supercompensation and progress to occur. (1,3)
Without a doubt the goal of our training is progress, so it would be
wise to aim for a systematic approach to training that allowed long term
improvements in progress, rather than excessive intensity/volume
(maladaptation) or a stimulus that is spaced too far apart (involution).
There are questions that have risen over the last two decades about the
single factor model, so this alone may not explain how coaches can best
leverage fatigue to further enhance gains.
Two-Factor Model
The Two-Factor Model involves a short-term fatigue after-effect, and a
long-term fitness after-effect. With fatigue being the training
stimulus, and fitness being the gains resulting from the training
stimulus. If you want to get super nerdy, there are actually
mathematical equations to calculate these improvements as well. (1,3)
In general, it is believed that the fitness effect endures roughly three times longer than the fatigue effect. So if the last negative traces of fatigue fade after 3 days, theoretically we have 9 days to take advantage of the previous training session and make gains.
Both models have their pros and cons but the two-factor model is more
widely recognized as a current understanding of our knowledge on
progress. So how can we leverage this unique fatigue-supercompensation
response to improve?
The Art of the Taper
Enter the taper, a period of training with decreased volume and
similar intensity. Going back to our earlier comparison of the
performance bank, the job of the taper is to slowly and consistently pay
off credit. Rather than ceasing training altogether and going into a
full blown recovery mode, slowly tapering off of intense training and
gradually transitioning into recovery mode is viewed as best practice
amongst strength and conditioning coaches. (2,3)
Just like in anything with training, the length and magnitude of the taper should be highly individualized. Some athletes recuperate quicker than others. I have tapered athletes for 5 days before powerlifting meets, and I have tapered athletes for 5 weeks before powerlifting meets and both ended up breaking all time PR’s on meet day. There is no right way of doing things, the key is listening to the athlete.
In summary, we have to embrace fatigue as a part of training and we
have to plan for it. As the one-factor and two-factor models suggest,
fatigue is not necessarily a bad thing either. In fact, research
suggests that short-term periods of overreaching can actually lead to
enhanced gains as well. (Wyatt, Donaldson, & Brown, 2013)This is
only one more reason for you to adopt a more periodized and systematic
approach towards training. In conclusion, perhaps the only difference
between paying the bank with money and paying the performance bank is
this…
Your gym dues aren’t paid with money, they are paid with sweat.