How can you tell if you're overtraining? I'd like some "expert" advice from some 50 somethings (or a coach of 50 somethings!) about how to know when what I'm doing is too much. I've added weights to my swimming - I go three times a week for weights - which I follow by a fairly easy swim to loosen up my muscles. I'm still frequently sore the next day (and the next, and the next) however - but I know this is to be expected - if I didn't feel sore, I wouldn't feel like I was actually even pushing myself. the other three days of the week, I generally put in a good 90-120 minutes workout, getting in from 4500-6000m. Sometimes, like today, I get to the point where I just can NOT muster up the energy to put any real effort into the swimming - today, for instance, I did fairly well for the first 3000m, but then once we started the "real" workout, the first main set, I was just pooped. I could swim, but at only a slow pace. (By this I mean that an interval I usually can keep on a 200 by about 10 seconds, I missed by 1 second - and I was wearing zoomers. And the thought of doing like a 50 sprint, was out of the question.) This was NOT a day that I swam following weights, BTW.
Do you think this is a nutrition problem, and that I'm just not getting enough protein in my diet? I have to say categorically, that eating BEFORE practice is out of the question - I swim at 5:30 in the morning, and would probably barf if I ate before practice, although I do sometimes eat some Shot Blox. Am I overtraining & need to cut back somewhere? Or is this a short term transition (it's been going on & off for weeks now) & I need to just hang in there?
Thanks in advance!
Hey Boninator! Haven't heard from you in a while! I agree with you, work can be exhausting sometimes! But I swim at 5:30 am so I can't use that as an excuse, lol! I think if I could grab a 30 minute nap in the afternoon, everything would work itself out, but alas, my patients want me awake when I see them. I'm gonna cut back to doing just 4500 max for a while, and weights only twice a week. I was reading the symptoms of overtraining (it's an actual syndrome, BTW) and I have 4 out of the 9 symptoms, well, maybe only 3, but still, it was enough to sober me. And I'm sorry to say, that Fortress advised me to only do weights twice a week a couple of months ago, and I ignored her! Live & learn. I have also noticed many older people, athletes or not, seem to need quite a bit more sleep than the young - my 82 yo father-in-law is asleep more than he's awake, now days.
Hey Boninator! Haven't heard from you in a while! I agree with you, work can be exhausting sometimes! But I swim at 5:30 am so I can't use that as an excuse, lol! I think if I could grab a 30 minute nap in the afternoon, everything would work itself out, but alas, my patients want me awake when I see them. I'm gonna cut back to doing just 4500 max for a while, and weights only twice a week. I was reading the symptoms of overtraining (it's an actual syndrome, BTW) and I have 4 out of the 9 symptoms, well, maybe only 3, but still, it was enough to sober me. And I'm sorry to say, that Fortress advised me to only do weights twice a week a couple of months ago, and I ignored her! Live & learn. I have also noticed many older people, athletes or not, seem to need quite a bit more sleep than the young - my 82 yo father-in-law is asleep more than he's awake, now days.
