Since weeks I wanted to write a scientific outline about this subject. My searches have been frustrating, the papers I finally retrieved are not very concise reflecting a situation of not-knowing a lot.
The studies available look at the various parameters we usually measure, if we design a study in sports and experience science. I just want to list some of them here: maximal oxygen uptake, resting and maximal heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output and other cardiac functions, erythropoiesis, hemolysis, energy expenditure and balance, blood ammonia, muscle glykogen, creatine kinase, cortisol, testosterone, catecholamines, different ratios, cytokines, growth factors, immune parameters, sleep patterns, mood scores and many more. Each study picks another focus, but the whole picture is missing.
Hard training and racing too much may stress the body in a way that disease symptoms suddenly reappear, part 1/2
Performing great and peaking at the right time – that does not only apply to sports – has a lot to do with finding and keeping your body in balance.
As an athlete you are constantly challenging your very own balance. At this point, I would like to mention that one’s balance is something individual, that parameters that define your balance cannot be simply passed on to someone else. The other may have a distinct pattern of parameters from you signifying wellbeing and balance. Balance is an active process, a condition that needs to be reestablished everyday, if you train and push your limits. This can eventually be a tricky thing to do.
Training intensifies and increases neural muscular impulses
Every muscle requires an impulse from the central nervous system for contraction. These stimuli determine how many muscle fibers are activated. You will be surprised to hear that only about 20% of the muscle is activated in the stage of high strain. The muscles need stimuli from the central nervous system to move. With the feeling of fatigue and exhaustion emerging a decline of the frequency of impulses to the muscles goes along. Exhaustion and fatigue are thus triggered by the central nervous system.
In the following I would like to discuss some of the different concepts on which a training plans can be based on. It is most likely an individually adapted concept mix that will most suitably lead you to your goal of a peak performance.
Here are the main models which are building the base for the logic of training plans, mostly these model are infiltrating the plans of coach on an unconscious level, which I think should not be the case.
How to change an acquired technique or learn a new technique with a new device without dropping out of balance
From coaches and trainers you will probably often hear the words that you are supposed to listen to your body, first consciously and – even better - unconsciously. Body and mind should form one entity. This means you have to proceed in a way that your body-mind balance is sustained. Easy said, difficult to achieve.
This rather cryptic and for some of you even absurd sounding heading belongs to an article series about the man and his/her devices. We, the athletes and biestmilch have chosen this as our quarterly topic. We all together would like to share our views and opinions with you. Here is the platform where experience and science join each other or may collide.
Sports are full of devices more or less sophisticated. The shoe is most probably the oldest one, which many of you may not even consider as a device. But imagine what can happen, if shoes are not fitting well. It can spoil the hard training work of years. That power meters and navigation systems are devices is obvious, nobody will doubt that, and therefore we are more consciously dealing with them. But a shirt?
The posts before have shown the dramatic outcomes of too much exercise and training. In between, I would like to take another perspective on the whole topic to encourage your efforts, and perhaps give you more cues at hand to make the detrimental results of too much training and racing more understandable.
Modern exercise physiology and biology put a lot of work into studying the healthy body. That has not been the case for many decades where scientists only looked at sick bodies. Exercise physiology gives an amazing insight into the body's "normal" way of functioning.
As many of you are heading for Kona and therefore are in their very hot phase of training I assume that the most helpful post would be to summarize the essential but discrete signs you have to watch out for to avoid overtraining.
Especially from studies that dealt with the effects of human growth hormone – a substance that is definitely on the WADA's list and considered as doping – we know that performance enhancement is very closely related to recovery times.