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EricT · 11-06-2008, 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DH

First there's a lot of differences between "overreaching" and "overtraining", so don't lump them together. Oftentimes, the less experienced don't know when to stop, nor the difference between feeling "a little run down" vs. completely burnt out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DH

There's 3 effects of training stress:

1) Fatigue
2) Overreaching
3) Overtraining

The first two will of course lead to a light reduction in your training capabilities which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The third one is when the lifter is too late. So, when you schedule random deloads far in advance without taking into account your recovery abilities, demands of the program, diet, sleep, stress, ect what you're doing is one of three things. One, you could just get lucky and guess right. Two, you deload well before adaption takes place from your training which makes everything you done up to that point pretty worthless. Three, by the time you deload on that magical week you slated in, it could be too late. If it IS too late (ie. overtraining vs. overreaching), then your deload would probably be more than one week OFF for sure (ie. you've officially fucked yourself). But remember, this applies more towards high intermediats and advanced lifters because novices can supercompensate faster thus never accumulating fatigue.

Overtraining as a term is used differently by different physiologists. I think it is important to understand, however, that “overtraining” and “overtraining syndrome” are not the same thing. Overtraining is what you do..the stimulus. Overtrainng syndrome is a list of physiological symptoms resulting from that. In other words, it’s manifestations.

This may seem like semantics but I assure you it is not. To illustrate this let’s compare overtraining to a virus. If you know anything about viruses then you’ll know that it is not their intention to produce specific symptoms in a host. It is not their intention to make you sick at all let alone to produce any specific reaction. If they have an intention (which of course they don’t, lol) it would be to magnify themselves. Period.

So with any virus there is a list of general and specific symptoms associated with that virus. You need enough of them and in the right combination to be reasonably certain that you have “VIRUS A”. And even then it’s a crapshoot. Virus A may or may not produce a fever, for example.

The reason I’m making this comparison is because overtraining can be the same. That is why so many trainers make very conservative recommendations as far as deloading or time off. Just because there is no fever you can’t say for sure it’s virus A. And just because there is not a certain symptom of overtraining syndrome you can’t say it ain’t overtraining.

Overtraining, at least at first, MAY OR MAY not produce a decline in performance. Just like virus A may or may not produce a fever. I’m putting a wrench in things but I’ll try to fish it out as I go.

Nowadays, what we do is use the term overreaching. We use this to define the first stage of overtraining and sometimes to describe overtraining without a performance decline.

This goes back to the beginner, intermediate, etc. thing. I’ve been down on starting strength. Well the above is a big part of the reason why. You can open youself up to overtraining and some manifestations of that while “making progress” on a program like SS. Because you can begin to overreach without seeing performance decriments. You can increase load on the bar for a while DESPITE the accumulation of fatigue. It is not correct to assume that progress means NO fatigue. That’s not how it works. Read my article on fitness-fatigue is you want to know what I mean. “Fitness” can accumulate too. Sometimes by the time ACUTE accumulated fatigue MASKS fitness you find out in unpleasant ways. Like injuries due to technical failure. I’m not trying to be an alarmist or ultra-conservative. In fact I am anything but. I’m just stating the A, B’s, and C’s.

Look at it this way. Doing TOO much TOO soon is a type of overtraining. Most people will accept this without question if you tell them. They may not stop doing too much but they'll know you're right. SO, you are going to tell me that we can define how much squatting is too much too soon because we have magically come up with the optimum set/rep range for a general population from which they can "recover" on a workout to workout basis sans "fatigue". Yeah...

Understanding a bit about Sympathetic Overtraining Syndrome versus Parasympathetic Overtraining Syndrome may help to tease out and make sense of some of that. Basically sympathetic is increased sypathetic activity at rest. Whereas parasympathetic is increased sympathetic activity at rest and with exercise.

Does that mean everyone should plan a deload every 4 weeks? Or six weeks? Or whatever arbitrary time someone tells you? No. Ummm…see DH’s comment of A DAY OFF, lol. You know there are very authoritative statements still posted on this forum that would lead people to believe that basically, you’re not allowed to take a day off. Honestly, lol, I don’t pay much attention to frequency and protein syntheis and all the various other physiological details when it comes to training. I pay attention to results.