I have been attempting to get ready for the indoor season over the past couple of months, but have been hampered by lingering injuries - hamstring issues, my feet hurt (plantar faciaits) and my knees often feel sore. I think that I have been trying to push too much too fast and not recovering enough.
It has now gotten to the point where I can’t even do most of my planned training activities at the level and intensity required. So something needs to change.
I am going to focus the next week or two on getting healthy so I can resume hard training. My original plan was to simply do a good low impact warmup each day or spend some time in the pool, then a long stretching session and finish up with some form of therapy.
However, I’m also cognizant of the principle of never getting too far away from speed. This leads me to a couple of questions:
Is it wise to not have any high intensity work in my routine for up to two weeks?
Sprinting if difficult at this point because of foot pain and hamstring issues. I can certainly add in EMS work and maybe lifting. I was thinking maybe maintenance weights (85%, 2-3r x 3 sets) Would this be a good idea?
Overall, my upper body feels pretty ok, should I try to make up for the lack of high intensity training by stepping up my upper body work?
Any other suggestions for a “recovery” training block?
I would attack the upper body hard, maybe ems for the lower body, high int mb throws, bb circuits, hurdles, mb circuits, bike riding for tempo work. Going 2-3 weeks without during speed/lower body work will not kill you.
I’d avoid any high intensity work for those two weeks. I’d also avoid caffeine and sugar if you can. I was feeling horrible a few weeks ago and couldn’t figure it out. I realized that I was starting to have to much caffeine alone with a bit to much sugar. By simply cutting those two things out, I felt much better almost instantly.
I’d also consider completely changing directions. If you were lifting heavy, go the complete opposite way and lift for time and neural recovery. I’ll PM you a couple of good articles.
Excellent idea! But I would like pool work for tempo instead of bike riding.
As for speed work, yes the theory says that healthy individuals must not get too far from speed work yet, this is not your case. Remember that every sprint session must be somewhat slightly better than the last, you’re not getting better, you’re getting worst, THIS IS NOT THE GOAL OF PROPER TRAINING.
As for Hams, have a therapist or yourself doing soft tissues work there, It is not like you would be able to run without you hamstrings…
For the knee, It is often the result of trigger point in the rectus femoris muscle, happen to me also each time I don’t get enough recovery, do trigger point and It works like magic (If the knee issue Is because of that)
It sounds to me, at least a little bit (and I could be wrong), like you are worried that you might not be able to overtrain while you recover from overtraining.
How about high intensity bike sprints until your foot recovers? I know Obadele had a similar issue and was restricted to bike sprints for a while yet was able to come out and run 19.9 a few weeks later
I don’t do caffeine. Ever. I don’t react well to it. Sugar is harder to avoid, but one of the things I have been pretty conscientious about is keeping a clean diet. I also find that diet has a dramatic, yet insidious, effect on how I feel.
I will definitely do the soft tissue work and I totally agree with your first paragraph. I think I have personally given that advice to others. But it is sometimes hard to have perspective on your own training!
I’m interested in the trigger point for the knee. How do I find the rectus femoris trigger point?
I like this idea. I think I’m going to probably do my first week with no lower body high intensity work. Depending on how things feel, bike sprints may be the next step.
On a related note, I know that Charlie often mentions that after a high level personal best, it can take up to 10 days to recover. I know I’m not at that level, but I was thinking that there my be some parallels with handling overtraining? What types of activities does/should an athlete engage in to recover from a PB?
3 years ago I had overtraining too. I trained a lot (obviously too much) during some months feeling really good for me (400m training, 48.95fat at this time). Some of my trainings/early competitions were really good (2x2x400 no spikes in low 51 r:4’-8’, or a 400m in a relay in low 48 going really easy).
But… I trained without stop during 19 days (according to my trainer, I had to do it if my body stand it); everything was ok until the last day, where I felt really tired. After that, my SB was 50.5x, and I was not able to go under 23.00 in 200m…
I tried to do almost nothing (but massages & stretching) during 2 weeks, after that some low volume work… but it didn’t work out.
The only think that worked out at the end was to rest for 1 month and start a new GPP with a lot of care and focusing a lot on listening the body. If I was tired -> rehab. day.
I know that it’s not the same as your experience, but I hope that it will help. In your case, I will recommend you to focus on outdoor season and forget about indoor… what if those problems will end on serious injuries?
Take a month with massages, stretching, and going easy, and go back to your training for destroy the track later
Xlr8, TaSsl,
I think you’ll find this article interesting: Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the Overtraining Syndrome (download PDF).
Giovanni Ciriani
