However, it is clear to me that most of the Spartans on this board understand the difference between real over-training, as opposed to the perceived over-training the supplement/magazine industry interjects us with, so I will come out and say that currently I am in a state of being over-trained. As a trainer I can recognize it easily in others, however as an athlete I view it more as a weakness and thus:
Cookie wrote:One thing I do find (for me) is that if I am heading into a state of over-training / over reaching I will in fact train even harder & make the effects & end result appear much sooner. A lot of other people I have seen fall into that very same situation.
This is just something most competitive athletes do, and without a trainer guiding you and forcing you to stay on the designated path an overly competitive person will in fact do what Cookie stated (man I really hate that screen name bro, lol) As also mentioned it usually leads to injury, which in return forces a reduction in workload and thus the body slowly recovers.
In my case the overtraining has been building over a period of a few months. The main catalyst to my overtraining station appears to be sleep, and more specifically my mattress. This finally became noticeable the other week when I woke up with a very stiff back. Initially I wrote it off as swimming the night before, or my wrestling match that weekend, however nothing was injured so to speak and my chiro confirmed this. Since I have done numerous tests and believe the mattress is the main culprit. I tried to prove this otherwise as my mattress is only 2-3yrs old and I had gone through 2 mattresses within the year before that, but all signs are pointing in that direction.
However, I would like to note that this was not the only catalyst. Recently I have taken to doing beta testing with a few fat loss stimulants. This too I am suspecting was another contributing factor, one I need to do more research on. Adding a stimulant to an already exhaustive cns workout may hasten the effects of overtraining so in essence:
Cookie wrote:Another issue I find so prevalent within the training contingent these days is overuse of "supplements" that are used to fire up an individuals "drive~focus" leading up to a workout. We have all found that a cup of black gold (coffee) works yet these products seem to take it to a near chemical level & in my honest opinion~experience are at times counter productive. Occasional use I have no problem with especially on those days when your not feeling 100% up for the workout or following a hard day at work. But what I have seen is that occasional use almost always goes to "constant" use & the body~individual cannot function without them. The other negative seems to be that these "supplements" have a tendency to push the trainee far beyond their normal training capacity but worse of all "beyond their actual recovery abilities". If this continues over a prolonged amount of time a "supplement" which was designed to help an individual break down barriers becomes the very thing that stops them from reaching & breaching those barriers.
As someone once said to me "you can put a Ferrari engine into a mini but eventually it`ll shake itself to bits" & that is something I think that continual use of these products does.
This too has merit. I would like to do more research on this while also looking at its effects on the adrenal glands.
Before this beta testing, caffeine (tea) was my only stimulant and though I probably had mattress issues then too, over-training was not an issue despite an immense and intense workload. So this too has merit and is worth looking into.
Currently I am researching mattresses and attacking that end first. I am researching foam, water, air, and combinations of those mentioned. I am also increasing my calories and bcaa’s to aid in recovery.
Very good info in this thread, and worth continuing.