Over-trained??? Suggesttions for recovery.

Sub16_5k, thank you for sharing this important knowledge of recovery using HR. One of the least understood aspects of good training. Implementing recovery in training, especially at the high school level, I found can be a very frustrating experience. Good stuff!

She informed me this morning that her heart rate has been increasing since her first race and is a 62 this morning after no running yesterday and 10 hours sleep last night.

Week 1 average-51

week 2 average-53

week 3 average-57

week 4 average-60

today-62

Overtrained. Or sick. Or both. Rest is your friend.

51 is her baseline. This is what it needs to be, with the usual variation of 1-2 beats. It's normal for her HR to be slightly elevated (2-3 bpm) the day after a hard workout but it should be back to normal within 48 hours. If you take it week after week and take the average, it should vary by 1-2 beats, not increase each week.

Biggest rule of thumb, if her resting HR is CONSISTENTLY over 10% higher than usual, she needs to take it easy until it comes down. THEN if it doesn't come down after that...no running. Look at the weeks you posted; It seems that her resting HR was becoming more elevated on average until it hit a point where it was 60 the whole week. If it is 5% higher for 1-2 days that's fine but keep an eye out on it so it doesn't keep rising. If it's greater than 10% higher for over 2 days, she needs rest.

60 Bpm is 15 PERCENT higher than normal, meaning she's way over her normal HR! Notice that she reached that 10% mark around week 3. That was the warning sign right there and Week 4 been easy, she probably would've likely ran a much better race that weekend. The hard workouts that week only made her more over-trained, and elevated it even worse. Then, the race (19:55) put her over the top.

The 62 she got today...that's nearly 20% of her normal HR! Do not under any circumstances let her run today. No running whatsoever until the day her HR returns to at least under 10% (53-55) Once it's back to around 53-55, have her just do easy runs that I mentioned above.

While doing so, take note:

-If it goes up again (very unlikely) then no running until it's back to 51.

-It should start to come down, as long as she truly goes easy. Just have her enjoy running. Run in the trails, etc...

-Once it's back to 50-52 for AT LEAST 2-3 days, you can have her do workouts, but at least 1-2x a week. (one hard day, or race; and a moderate day, with easy days in between.)

10 hours of sleep is also a lot...Most people do not need more than 8 hours (I get along fine at 6-7). Oversleeping can cause symptoms similar too little. The body is a delicate balance...too little or too much of something is bad. Being 5% undertrained is better than 1% overtrained. The further you go into it, the harder and longer it'll be to get out of it. She still has time, but you need to take action now.

If she is tired to the point where she needs 10 hours a day, she's either coming down with an illness (as a result of overtraining) or she's not getting quality sleep. Try what I mentioned above, and see what happens.

Overtraining weakens the immune system so it can make her more susceptible to illnesses but based on her weekly resting HR averages, it's likely more overtraining.

If she was sick, her resting HR would be fine for the other weeks, and really high for the 3-5 days that she's sick.

Instead of (51,53,57,60) it would be (51,51,52,70,51). She's simply over-trained. She'll be back and running better than ever once her HR comes back down, and she'll feel much better too. Rest is your best friend!

A quote I heard in HS 2 years back:

"Never underestimate the power of rest" -my coach, who was also a sergeant major

She has had a cold for about 5-6 days now could that explain the numbers over 60? Or is it just a symptom of the over-training? I understand on the rest but I'm worried that may be difficult to with the goals for the team this year.

trackdad5837 wrote:

She has had a cold for about 5-6 days now could that explain the numbers over 60? Or is it just a symptom of the over-training? I understand on the rest but I'm worried that may be difficult to with the goals for the team this year.

Yep, especially if she had a fever. Wait for her HR to recover and makes sure she gets plenty of fluids. She should be back to normal this week hopefully. Her cold, is very likely the result of overtraining as well (one of the main symptoms.)

Also, does she have trouble falling sleep/staying asleep? If she normally does, it's not overtraining, but if she's been having trouble lately like in the last 2 weeks, then it's another symptom.

She was a little flushed yesterday. Sleeping been great 8'-9.5 hours a night. In bed by 10:00.

I think what most people in this forum dont understand is the phases of training. The middle of the season is when runners race on heavy legs due to high intensity/high mileage training. There is a reason for that....at the end of the season a runner is supposed to peak by lowering mileage and doing speed work/high intensity. If she takes a week off it would be simulating a peak in the season. Yes she is going to run GREAT at the next race, but do you want her to just run great at that race or at a championship???

My advice is that she takes recovery runs very easy or even pool/cross train on easy days. But on hard days she needs to go hard, or there is no point in the training. I ran in college and experienced this every season. But let me tell you that I ended a season with a PR each time.

trackdad5837 wrote:

She has had a cold for about 5-6 days now could that explain the numbers over 60? Or is it just a symptom of the over-training? I understand on the rest but I'm worried that may be difficult to with the goals for the team this year.

She's sick and trying to race/train hard at the same time? Sub-16 5k is giving good advice, as are others. She needs a break. Period.

There will be no more season if she plows through being sick and her resting HR is showing high fatigue. She'll put herself in a bad place...

Also, if she started hard workouts back in June she's probably going the wrong way anyways if they were hard efforts (even if 2x/week and not 3x). One can only get so much gain from anaerobic work before the system has had enough and starts to fry. Think about it, June to October is 4 months - that's a long time to be doing hard anaerobic work!

She may very well be able to come back and do well at the end of the season, but some amount of recovery is going to need to happen. THe sooner the rest starts the quicker she could get back into the swing of things.

She met with the coach today at school and they are going to treat this an injury, agreement on the over-training. They will be reducing the mileage and stress level, no workouts until the resting heart rate is down into the lower 50's as before. Bring her along but no lose to date work for season's end.

Today was an easy 30 minutes (others did workout total of 8 miles) and she used a heart rate monitor. Tried to keep heart rate at AT minus 15. Tomorrow looks to be pool time or an easy longer run (other kids will do 12-13)with monitor. We have access to an Alter G, would that be a good idea (with coach buy-in) with monitor?

Also she takes an Epsom salt bath almost daily for aches and pain. Could that effect resting heart rate or other bad effects?

Today was an easy 30 minutes...tried to keep heart rate at AT minus 15.

Brief or not, AT/LT-15 is NOT a restful or regenerative effort, I fear. Her runs now shouldn't even entail effort. So why did she try "to keep it there"? Does coach know what REST means for a 17-year-old girl? Does she (or he) know what training means and entails (stress+rest)? She should be walking and jogging until symptoms no longer persist. AT-30 is perhaps more like it, and if she (or he) is too compulsive to know when to say when, will she be able to cope when it's forced upon her?

I'm not trying to criticize without helping, but REST should be easily understood. All this written, let's hope she bounces back: healthy and rejuvenated and hungry for it! Kids are tough, in particular girls!

trackdad5837 wrote:

She met with the coach today at school and they are going to treat this an injury, agreement on the over-training. They will be reducing the mileage and stress level, no workouts until the resting heart rate is down into the lower 50's as before. Bring her along but no lose to date work for season's end.

Today was an easy 30 minutes (others did workout total of 8 miles) and she used a heart rate monitor. Tried to keep heart rate at AT minus 15. Tomorrow looks to be pool time or an easy longer run (other kids will do 12-13)with monitor. We have access to an Alter G, would that be a good idea (with coach buy-in) with monitor?

Also she takes an Epsom salt bath almost daily for aches and pain. Could that effect resting heart rate or other bad effects?

Seems good to me. Make sure it's at least 5K pace + 3min or slower. The baths should have no effect on the resting HR, unless she put her whole face in the water too! (mammalian dive-reflex)

Keep us updated on how she does!

trackdad5837 wrote:

She met with the coach today at school and they are going to treat this an injury, agreement on the over-training. They will be reducing the mileage and stress level, no workouts until the resting heart rate is down into the lower 50's as before. Bring her along but no lose to date work for season's end.

Today was an easy 30 minutes (others did workout total of 8 miles) and she used a heart rate monitor. Tried to keep heart rate at AT minus 15. Tomorrow looks to be pool time or an easy longer run (other kids will do 12-13)with monitor. We have access to an Alter G, would that be a good idea (with coach buy-in) with monitor?

Also she takes an Epsom salt bath almost daily for aches and pain. Could that effect resting heart rate or other bad effects?

Your Qs 1st:

1. wouldn't bother with alter-g. if she needs low impact go for swimming, biking, or the like.

2.unless she's taking the bath right before taking the hr and her body temp is up, then no, the salt bath shouldn't have any effect on resting hr.

OK, so if I were her coach this is what I'd do. Take 1 week completely off, minimum. To keep up the team environment I'd invite her to ride her bike with her teammates while they ran. She can still be part of the team, but also be recovering. I'd only have her do this once she gets over her cold.

After this one week, if the resting HR is ok, try easy running and monitor how she feels and how she looks while on this easy run (coach should be able to see if she's laboring) and then the resting HR the next day. If resting HR is low 50s (the normal/baseline), keep trying the easy running, if not, more rest. I'd also have parents and friends monitor her mood as a bad mood is another indicator of over training.

She can sit on her butt for one week and isn't going to lose any fitness. Seriously, nothing will be lost in one week. She most likely would come back in two weeks and run exceptionally well. Also, look at the career of Joan Benoit Samuelson as one who performed well after forced time off (and even herself admitted she probably would have run better with more recovery).

Don't mess around with over-training, you can really mess up the entire body and it can take months to YEARS to recover. If it's not already too late a week or two off now can save months of frustration.

sub 16k is right. rest is your friend. The tough thing to remember during a training cycle is that you don't gain through the training, you gain in the recovery from the training. it is so hard to do when the entire team is hammering out intervals but she will only improve by rest.

Complete week off will not happen but she will run easy(use pool) and work on recovery. She knows that she needs to take it easy and rest in order to turn things around.

trackdad5837, can you tell me what AT/-15 pace is? I agree with continuing to run and slowing the pace down.

dsffhbg wrote:

She can sit on her butt for one week and isn't going to lose any fitness. Seriously, nothing will be lost in one week. She most likely would come back in two weeks and run exceptionally well. Also, look at the career of Joan Benoit Samuelson as one who performed well after forced time off (and even herself admitted she probably would have run better with more recovery).

Don't mess around with over-training, you can really mess up the entire body and it can take months to YEARS to recover. If it's not already too late a week or two off now can save months of frustration.

This^^^

Listen to him, it's really something to not mess with. You can give the easy runs a change but if her HR still doesn't come down, then days off...

If her LT-15 HR is faster than 5K + 3 min pace, then she needs to go truly easy (70-75% of her max HR.)

She won't be at higher risk of injury too.

She's only had the elevated HR for 2 weeks, so it's pretty early overtraining. A good easy week or two, and she'll be back and better than ever!

Resting HR down to 58 this morning and cold seems to be waning. Looks like the pool today, coach seems nervous to have them just sit but a good compromise. She has read your posts and understands the easy part till things come back in line.

You seem to know every detail about her training, every number about what she's doing. She's not a number, and she needs support, not analysis and pressure.