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Epic Training Vs. Overreaching:
Knowing When to ‘Say When’
Written by Dr. SkibaMost athletes are at least aware of the concept of periodization. Put simply, periodization means that the training program of any athlete must evolve with time. Think about it: If you set up a training week with certain workouts, and only did those workouts at the same particular speed for a long time, your performance would quickly stop improving. Put another way, since your body adapts precisely to the stress you place on it, you will never see more adaptation if you don’t increase the stress.
These ideas are all well and good, however, we are athletes and we need to think about things a bit more practically. For example, if I change my workouts around, what kind of results can I expect and when can I expect them? The answer is vital when planning a season, or trying to pinpoint a “peak” in fitness for a particular competition. Moreover, what are the chances that ratcheting up my training too quickly will hurt, rather than help my performance? This is a significant question when considering the recent popularity of "epic camps", which involve a frankly insane volume of training over a period of a week or two.
Not surprisingly, there are scientists out there who make their living torturing athletes in an effort to answer these sorts of questions. One such study was done by a well-known fellow named Jeukendrup in England. He asked the question, “What will happen if I take a bunch of trained cyclists and arbitrarily double their training volume at high intensities (i.e. 82-94% of maximum heart rate)?”
Nice guy, right?
Be that as it may, the study went something like this: for two weeks, Jeukendrup allowed the cyclists to perform their usual training (7 hours/week). Then, they were pushed to 14 hours/week for 2 weeks. Finally, they allowed 2 weeks of recovery training at about 3.5 hours/week.
The results were dramatic. On average, maximum power output increased slightly from the first week to the second week. It then dropped precipitously in the third and fourth week, from almost 340 watts in week 2 to 320 watts in week 4. Likewise, maximum heart rate dropped from above 190 in week 1 to 177 in week 4. Time to complete a time trial increased from less than 60 minutes to over 64 minutes from week 1 to week 3. Questionnaires indicated that the cyclists were feeling tired, stressed, and were becoming more so as the study progressed.
Once a period of recovery was initiated, it took almost two weeks for things to get back to normal. After two weeks, time to complete the time trial improved slightly from baseline performance, but not significantly so. Maximal power output also increased slightly, but again, not significantly so.
Why did these things happen? There isn’t a good answer. This study indicated that there was no change in fuel utilization by the body (carbohydrate vs. fat). It also showed that there was no change in efficiency when the cyclists were tired. Finally, it was not clear whether the decreased maximal heart rates were the cause, or the effect of the fatigue. In other words, we can’t know if the heart saying, “I’m too tired to do this”, or if the muscles were saying, “No, I’m too tired to do this!” It has been suggested that disturbances in the nervous system may play a part, but this too is largely theoretical at this point.
For now, we can take a couple of points from studies like this. First, large increases in volume are clearly ill-advised. Not only will you get cranky, tired, and suffer decreased performance, you will have the joy of these effects for up to two weeks. Secondly, weeks of unreasonably intense “epic” or “crash” training may not be a great idea either, since in this case such training did not result in significant gains. Thirdly, any gains that were realized came after almost two weeks. There are complicated mathematical reasons for this that we need not concern ourselves with. However, the take home message is that recovery must be an important part of a training program. Shelling yourself without mercy is not the path to greatness.
That is all for now. Keep the above lessons in mind as you put your master plan for athletic domination together. Your legs (and your arms, heart, and brain) will thank you for it.
