Is it ok to over train?

I question that “junk” miles even exist.

One of the adaptations we get is purely from repeated muscle contractions. It’s possible that 3 hours of muscle contractions in Z1 provide a very similar stimulus to 3 hours at a higher wattage but with less fatigue.

The term junk miles would imply that it wasn’t worth doing or it was a net zero in training effect or even a net negative.

Four years ago I did a junk miles base block (Seiler inspired). Almost all rides were limited to 125bpm. Back then, 125bpm was just noodling along super easy for me. Any kind of effort increased HR fast. I did it for 13 weeks. At week 7 I was breaking all my key Strava PRs. Interestingly, I didn’t get any faster after week 7. I stayed at that level but no new dramatic fitness bumps. It was an interesting experiment.

One issue I have now is that I’m way fitter and doing 125bpm rides lead to a higher average wattage and much more fatigue.

I think the real answer is that the TR plan isn’t “for you”. It’s an aggressive plan yes but I would be interested to know if that plan does or does not account for age/training experience and so on. Now at 58 and having a lot of riding experience but less structured training experience, I’m fining I can tolerate a MID volume plan for a few months at a time and then have to back off, especially as summer comes and I want to do more nonstructured training. Your body cannot and won’t recover as fast as when you were 20/30/40. Pretending it can handle too much load is a recipe for injury/overtraining. I do know I cannot any longer do very hard back to back days. The cumulative dose finds me

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I briefly fired up Fast Talk podcast, skipped around, but don’t have time to listen. What was the point made in those two podcasts? There is evidence to support the notion you can go too low, that below a certain % VO2max its simply a recovery ride and no real benefits beyond that.

They were talking about longer low intensity rides rather than a short recovery ride. Connor is a known polarizer. I’ve heard him say many times over the years that you can’t do those long rides too slow. But he’s often talking about 3-4-5+ hour rides. Kolie Moore’s guest said the same thing about her endurance rides. She really has to hold herself back. She was talking about riding with her mom as being the perfect solution.

Both episodes got me thinking. I hardly ever do a true recovery ride. A 150 watt average will feel pretty easy to me but it’s not recovery. It’s like low z2 and just kicks the fatigue can down the road.

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You should try them. I’ve been benefitting from super easy hour rides once a week between my workout “blocks” (e.g. my week of: Interval - long ride - recovery ride - neuromuscular/AeT work - Interval - long ride - rest day).

Last one averaged 115W for an hour with a 285W threshold. I always feel better after. But if I’m not feeling it, I can skip it too.

Thursday easy gravel ride with the boys from LBS:

Try it, great way to add some easy riding and break up training:

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If that is the ‘overtraining’ podcast with one of their new coaches, I found that an interesting conversation but probably not in the way they intended. My recollection is that riding with her Mom helps reduce the need for zone discipline / self-control and actually do endurance rides in zone 2. Before that she was always going too hard and driving herself into the ground.

I found it a weird advertisement for one of their new coaches. “Hire our new coach who is a couple years out of college and has been chronically over training through high school, college and post-college, and only reduced intensity to a level that she could actually recover once we started coaching our new coach.”

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Haha! Word!

Hi Brennus,

I think over reaching sounds about right. Before getting Covid, I felt quite good, but tired.

Looking back (by the way I’ve made my data public) I think the lack of a recovery week between specialty and going back into build didn’t help.

I’d been away for a week skiing at Easter, which I’d marked as holiday, so not sure if this confused the algorithm.

Main concern now is how to build back into training, I’m still tired and not thinking of going back to the full AT plan this week, but hope to be back at it proper next week.

Dont forget you can pick a plan and only follow 1 of the sessions each week, and just ignore the others, and AT will just ‘work’ on that session each week in future eg do the LV plan and only do the Tues session and just ride about a bit as you like the rest of the week. AT will look at your Tues session and adapt next Tuesday but ignore the rest of the week. Makes easing back onto a plan quite easy

I guess I don’t know what you guys think would be a better teacher besides experiencing something like that yourself?

Self coached athletes often lose sight of their own training, ending up doing inappropriate sessions/blocks/etc.

Being both a coach and a self coached athlete myself, I sometimes prescribe myself sessions that I wouldn’t give my athletes, simply because it’s difficult to be objective (usually I manage to recognise this and pull back).

KM’s coach overtraining probably isn’t a reflection on her coaching ability!

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Exactly.

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Ideally, you want to try to benefit from the experience of others so that you don’t have to start at ground floor. If you have a coach, you should trust them (but verify!) for otherwise, IMHO you are wasting your money and time.

For example, exploring your boundaries is good (which sometimes means going beyond what you can do), but that is different from not knowing the basics and failing because of that. I’d also do that consciously and deliberately.

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So, if your COACH has learned that him/herself, and applies that knowledge to ensure they don’t overtrain YOU, that’s a good thing, no?

Kolie Moore also admitted to overtraining himself years ago. Does that mean he doesn’t know what he’s doing?

I think if you look at the list of coaches who have coached themselves, you’re not going to find many who haven’t overdone it at some point. Objectivity is very difficult for self coached people, and that’s why there’s the adage that “every coach needs a coach.”

yes. But I don’t think it is a good advertisement if the prospective coach has been doing it for 10 years straight. At least, I wouldn’t hire that coach.

I’ve pushed things too far on a couple of occasions. Not for 10 years straight.

For almost 10 consecutive years?

Nope. I’m sure not. She had the sense to know she was doing something wrong and to hire a coach. And then she learned from that. I doubt most coaches overtrain for that long, but I also doubt she’s the only one.

When you’re picking a coach, do you review their own personal training plans?

Now I don’t think it’s great advertising, but again, I don’t think KM is an idiot in terms of the people he brings on as EC coaches either.

True, but business is booming and candidates of high quality could be in short supply.

There’s enough information and tools for the self-coached to do the right thing at all times. The only reasons to have a coach is:

  • You don’t have time, interest in learning the process of training.
  • You have done the right for a long time and can’t be creative enough to get out of a plateau and need a hand.
  • You have behavioral issues and need a coach to help you with that.
  • You enjoy conspicuous consumption
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What I find annoying here is the veiled put downs about a coach we only heard briefly on a podcast. You don’t think it was the best advertising? Whatever, you weren’t going to hire her anyway.

She’s obvious an elite athlete with lots of experience. She got her degree. She’s started coaching. Everybody has to start somewhere.

If KM hired her, she’s probably going to be great. And she has KM as a mentor.

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