overtraining article

Why Less Is More...

As cyclists and sportsmen, we grow up believing that the more we
practise a sport, the better we get. And for the most part, this is
true. But in some very specific cases, the opposite is true.

The greatest danger for the cyclist is not undertraining, but
overtraining.

You have a race. You’ve been training for weeks, maybe months for this
one race. A couple of weeks before you are flying, going really well,
hammering on the flats and racing up the hills like Alberto. A week
before the race, you start to get doubts though - Did I train
enough? Should I talk it easy this week? Or get out for another 150km
today? Some sprints tomorrow? And on it goes.

So, you get out on your bike and get in even more kilometres, worried that you’ve undertrained.

Race day comes, and you have a stinker. Your previously iron-like legs go
to jelly, your breathing is not smooth, you’ve lost that Lance-like
power you had just a week ago! What happened?!

In the majority of cases, this means one thing - Overtraining. In that
last week before the race, if your preparations were thorough enough
in the month before the race, you should have done very little. maybe
a one or two 20 minute race-pace time trials early in the week, a
couple of hours spinning on Wednesday, and a few one minute intervals
on the trainer on the Thursday or Friday. The days in between, just
get out on your bike and enjoy cycling.

But after the disastrous race, most cyclists make a classic mistake. They
think that they performed poorly because they didn’t train enough.
They’ve learnt, as cyclists, that hard work pays off. The harder
they train, usually, the stronger they get. But in certain cases, we
need to challenge our mental hard-wiring, to step back and assess the
situation. Most cyclists neglect one major aspect of the sport - and
that’s Rest and Recovery.

If you perform badly, take a few days off. Get your motivation back. The
next time you head out to do those leg-busting intervals, be 100%
motivated, not 90%. Five 3-minute intervals at 100% will do you far
more good than ten at 80%. It’s a simple matter of listening to
your body. Don’t be a slave to your pre-planned routine. If you
don’t feel like doing repeat hill climbs, don’t do them. Wait
until your body and mind align, then get out and kill those hills.

It’s easer said than done, listening to your body’s signals, but the
sooner a cyclist can learnt to listen, the better he or she will
become, and there will be far less risk of overtraining.

If you undertrain, there is room for improvement. If you overtrain, you
could set your training back weeks, and have to start all over again.

I once read a great interview with Fabian Cancellara (where I can’t
quite recollect, possibly ProCycling), but he basically talked
about this problem. He said that most pros plan for one really hard
day of training every 4 days, but that for him, one hard day in five
was enough to get him prepared for racing and in top condition
without risking overtraining. You can imagine just how hard a
Cancellara Hard Day must be! It would probably kill most of us. But
it’s a routine worth thinking about.

Anther great rider, Jacques Anquetil, would spend just 2 to 2 and a half
hours being motorpaced behind his wife’s car in preparation for the
Tour de France. Admittedly, he had an excellent base from winter
training and racing before the Tour - and reportedly motorpaced at
over 60km per hour for those 2 hours - but again, this is evidence of
the less is more philosophy.

A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to interview the English
rider Nicole Cook, who is one of the most successful cyclists of all
time - men or women - and asked her if she had any advice for young
aspiring racers. “Quality over Quantity,” she said immediately.

150km a day at the same pace will do you no good. Overtraining is the root
of many of the problems we see in our progress. Listen to your body,
let it communicate with you.

It’s the best coaching resource you will ever find.