Training vs. Overdoing

[Seajay]

If you are that sore 24hr later. You are working too hard for your current fitness and you will get injured or burned out.
You can't make up for lost time...you have to just reset from where you are and build at a normal rate.
The body will not be ignored. It will just yell louder until it breaks down.

As an example. I took a year off racing once. The following December, I limited myself to a 42x18 gear as the highest I would use and 12mph as a max speed (this was pre- HRM and wattage) on the flats and soft pedalling every climb for 8 weeks before I allowed ANY hard work. Had my best season that year with no injury issues.

[OakLeaf]

I'm good about this when I'm healthy, but really at sea when I'm rehabbing an injury (like my hands/wrists now). That 30-minute rule is helpful to keep me from overdoing it twice at the same stage of recovery, but I'm not sure how to keep from getting there in the first place. It also doesn't help that I often don't experience mild pain as pain at all, until after I'm completely healed and realize how much the pain was dragging me down.


... but 30 minutes after cutting up a chicken (except for making DH split the breast) - the most I've done in the kitchen since my crash - my hand doesn't hurt any more, so that's good to know.

[SLash]

Bluebug, I'm exactly twice your age and like the others have said, after a hard workout on the spinner (90 -120 minutes) I am wasted, but it never leaves me with soreness the next day.

Like the others, I think you are overtraining. Like you I'm concerned about over doing it, I have not trained so seriously in an off-season for years, and don't want to burn out by next spring or worse suffer an injury.

My last session was two hours of base building keeping my heart rate in zone 3 the entire time (not counting warm up/down). The next day, I did a very easy spin on the trainer for 60 minutes, never getting above top of zone 2. Today I will be doing Robbie Ventura's Force DVD (1st time). Tomorrow an easy spin.

It might be fine for you to do the hard workouts but you need to offset it with an easy workout the next day - active recovery instead of taking a day off the bike completely.

I'm wondering about your bike fit too, if maybe you might still need to tweak it a bit?

We got a new spinner in November and when I first started using it I had pain in my knee/quads that through lots of adjustments I've seemed to resolved.

Another issue might be you're pushing too hard a gear, that was true for me initially with the spinner.

You've received a lot of good advice from the others, just wanted to add my 2 cents. Good luck with your training.

[Seajay]

I'm wondering about your bike fit too, if maybe you might still need to tweak it a bit?

+10 !! Good call, Slash.

[tulip]

Rest is part of training. Take it as seriously as your "active" part of training.

[Catrin]

Rest is part of training. Take it as seriously as your "active" part of training.

What Tulip said, that got me into a lot of trouble last year On the other hand, I had no signs that I was doing too much - no soreness, no nothing - until I went too far. I really didn't have all that much fatigue, considering all that I was doing...

Also make certain that you are drinking enough - my new physical therapist thinks that not drinking enough made me more prone to injury. Thankfully he is a cyclist...

[redrhodie]

Bluebug, how long are you on the trainer for?

[KnottedYet]

Bluebug, how long are you on the trainer for?

One of the things a sports psychologist can help with is getting out of the "numbers rut." Not to worry about time, or repetitions, or pounds, or wattage, or heart-rate.

To instead listen to the body. Not to look at graphs, "averages", or charts.

Not to get caught up in "I should be going THIS fast. I should ride THIS long. I should meet THIS goal. I only did THAT much, I can't be tired yet, so I'll keep going no matter how I feel."