The Theory of the Sweet Science
The Theory of the Sweet Science
Your motor's running way too fast - James Reyne
Without wanting to project my personal experiences onto others, I’d like to expand on Part 1 of this subject with an important insight that I gained through many years of making the mistake of overtraining time and time again.
I wasted many years of my life through overtraining and the worst part is that I don’t get that time back, ever — and you won’t either.
If you are already burnt out, then me talking about ways to avoid overtraining or the issues that you face when in that physical and mental state are next to useless. So, in this article I want to talk generally about some common sense ideas on what to do if you have already pushed your body beyond its ability to recover within a normal period of time.
First of all, you have to recognise and admit that you are exhausted and have over—trained. If you’ve pushed beyond your limits several times then you should be familiar with the signs your body is giving out. I included a list of overtraining indicators in Part 1 of this article but to refresh your memory I’ll add a few more here:
As you can see the symptoms are both physical and psychological. We are a mind embodied and what affects one, usually affects the other e.g. unwell body—unwell mind. Generally the people around you (friends and family) will notice things such as moodiness and malaise and often times they can act as look-out or an early warning system. But they have to be prepared to speak up.
Take a primitive organism, any weak, pitiful organism. Say a freshman. Make it lift or jump or run. Let it rest. What happens? A little miracle. It gets a little better. It gets a little stronger or faster or more enduring. That's all training is. Stress. Recover. Improve. You'd think any damn fool could do it. But you don't. You work too hard and rest too little and get hurt.
The quote above is from Bill Bowerman who is a legendary distance running coach & co-founder of Nike. Learn more about Bill in this wonderfully fascinating and entertaining article that's simply entitled: "The Man".
People who over train frequently tend to ignore the signals and signs that their body and mind is throwing out. In a cruel irony, the next step after that is that you will not even feel or recognize when your body has had enough, in other words your body is still throwing out signals for you to stop, but you are oblivious to them and that’s when you are in the danger zone. If this sounds familiar, then you not only need to take time off of your training, you have some serious thinking to do about what direction your life is headed.
Short answer is: as long as it takes. Forget about your training routines for a while because this is your quality of life and your health at stake. If you can admit to yourself that there is a problem and then put a halt to your training, you’re over half way to solving your problem. I would suggest a minimum of 4 weeks off. Everyone is different but it will take an extended period of time before your body can begin to recover from the beating you gave it.
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them - Albert Einstien
The main point here is that you step back to allow time to physically and mentally recover, then hopefully you’ll gain some insight and wisdom which will enable you to assess your situation properly and make good decisions with sound mind and reason. The key is that you cannot make sound judgements about anything when you are totally exhausted. The difference between your cognitive abilities when you are run—down compared to when you are well rested and in full health is like night and day.
Taking an extended break from training ought not to be looked upon as something that is separate from your main goal, it’s actually more a part of the bigger picture. And don’t look upon it as a setback, but instead see it as a way forward in both your life and training.
The general idea of training, exercise and sport is the betterment of one’s self. It should add to your life in much the same way as good music can benefit the ambience and feel of a room. If the music is too loud it tends to not add, but takeover — thereby drowning out all else. Overtraining will have the same result and in yet another irony, you will actually do harm to your health and your life, not improve it.
