WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.700 Even if you're working with a non -athlete, you 00:00:02.700 --> 00:00:04.900 sit down and say, okay, you just want to train 00:00:04.900 --> 00:00:07.559 for health and fitness, and you just bought a 00:00:07.559 --> 00:00:10.519 three -month membership at my facility, and great, 00:00:10.619 --> 00:00:12.679 well, let's see what we can do over three months. 00:00:12.859 --> 00:00:15.619 Oh, by the way, halfway through, I'm going on 00:00:15.619 --> 00:00:19.140 a family vacation for 10 days. Oh, okay, well, 00:00:19.339 --> 00:00:21.899 I'm not going to tell the client that, well, 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:23.920 here's your workout, you better do it while you're 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:27.079 on vacation. It's like, no, well, there's a break. 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:29.820 I don't control that and we'll build that into 00:00:29.820 --> 00:00:33.479 the program. Hi, Andy. It's my pleasure to have 00:00:33.479 --> 00:00:35.759 you on Evidence Strong Show. If you could briefly 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:38.039 introduce yourself. Well, hello, Alex. My name 00:00:38.039 --> 00:00:41.100 is Andy Fry. I'm coming to you from Lawrence, 00:00:41.179 --> 00:00:43.500 Kansas, which is right in the middle of the USA. 00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:46.280 And I am recently retired from the University 00:00:46.280 --> 00:00:49.399 of Kansas, where I was a department chair and 00:00:49.399 --> 00:00:52.079 then later director of the Jayhawk Athletic Performance 00:00:52.079 --> 00:00:55.399 Lab and have over the years done a lot of work 00:00:55.399 --> 00:00:59.020 in sports science and in the physiology, a lot 00:00:59.020 --> 00:01:02.200 of it with resistance exercise. And today I believe 00:01:02.200 --> 00:01:03.740 we're going to talk a little bit about one of 00:01:03.740 --> 00:01:06.480 my favorite topics, which is overtraining. Excellent. 00:01:06.540 --> 00:01:09.319 I feel very blessed to have you pulled you out 00:01:09.319 --> 00:01:12.439 of retirement to teach us something. So, okay, 00:01:12.519 --> 00:01:15.700 let's jump in. So we need to clarify some definitions 00:01:15.700 --> 00:01:18.900 first. So what overtraining is and what is not? 00:01:19.219 --> 00:01:22.219 I think overtraining is an overused word. And 00:01:22.219 --> 00:01:25.459 I've come to that conclusion after spending the 00:01:25.459 --> 00:01:27.980 best part of my research career trying to... 00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:30.659 study it and understand it. A number of years 00:01:30.659 --> 00:01:33.609 ago, The American College of Sports Medicine 00:01:33.609 --> 00:01:36.310 and the European College of Sports Sciences got 00:01:36.310 --> 00:01:39.730 together to form a position stand on the topic 00:01:39.730 --> 00:01:43.209 because the terms come up repeatedly, overtraining, 00:01:43.409 --> 00:01:46.890 overreaching. What are they? How do you avoid 00:01:46.890 --> 00:01:50.069 it? How do you identify? And it's a very confusing 00:01:50.069 --> 00:01:52.730 topic because there's a lot of things going on. 00:01:52.890 --> 00:01:56.069 But in a nutshell, it boils down to you have 00:01:56.069 --> 00:01:59.209 an increase in training volume and or training 00:01:59.209 --> 00:02:02.989 intensity that leads. to a decrease in performance. 00:02:03.290 --> 00:02:06.370 And some definitions actually say a stagnation 00:02:06.370 --> 00:02:08.770 in performance, which is true. It could be that, 00:02:08.830 --> 00:02:11.389 but that's hard to tell whether that's just normal 00:02:11.389 --> 00:02:13.270 training or whether that's overtraining because 00:02:13.270 --> 00:02:16.610 even on the best training programs, people stagnate 00:02:16.610 --> 00:02:19.550 at places or they hit certain plateaus. And especially 00:02:19.550 --> 00:02:21.650 when you get to the more highly trained individuals, 00:02:21.949 --> 00:02:24.949 elite athletes, the gains are very small and 00:02:24.949 --> 00:02:28.150 hard to get. And so plateaus happen all the time. 00:02:28.169 --> 00:02:30.569 But perhaps the most important... characteristic 00:02:30.569 --> 00:02:33.800 is there is an impairment in... performance. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:36.599 And if that doesn't exist, then you're probably 00:02:36.599 --> 00:02:39.340 talking about something else. How athlete burnout 00:02:39.340 --> 00:02:41.879 would fit into that? You know, that's a great 00:02:41.879 --> 00:02:44.780 question. If you went on to Google Scholar or 00:02:44.780 --> 00:02:47.639 PubMed or Sport Discus and you typed in burnout, 00:02:47.879 --> 00:02:50.340 you will get some overtraining references, but 00:02:50.340 --> 00:02:52.819 you'll also get a lot of other stuff that comes 00:02:52.819 --> 00:02:55.840 out of the psychology and mental skills and the 00:02:55.840 --> 00:02:59.580 industrial world. Organizational psychology gets 00:02:59.580 --> 00:03:02.620 into that a lot. So that's not an inappropriate... 00:03:02.639 --> 00:03:05.159 term for what we're talking about, but it also, 00:03:05.280 --> 00:03:07.659 that term also has a lot of different definitions. 00:03:07.659 --> 00:03:10.680 So you kind of have to declare, operationally 00:03:10.680 --> 00:03:13.060 define the context in which you're using it. 00:03:13.180 --> 00:03:16.280 So if we're talking about sport or we're talking 00:03:16.280 --> 00:03:19.099 about resistance exercise, okay, that narrows 00:03:19.099 --> 00:03:21.560 it down quite a bit. So we have overtraining, 00:03:21.740 --> 00:03:25.599 overreaching, and burnout. Let's say these three 00:03:25.599 --> 00:03:29.289 now. If you, if I would force you to. Make some 00:03:29.289 --> 00:03:32.110 kind of definition so these three become a different 00:03:32.110 --> 00:03:35.310 thing. Would you be able to do it? I would say 00:03:35.310 --> 00:03:39.289 no for burnout, but for overreaching and overtraining, 00:03:39.330 --> 00:03:41.599 yes. And so... I'm going to back up just a little 00:03:41.599 --> 00:03:45.159 bit because there is something called overtraining 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:47.400 and there is something called the overtraining 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:50.280 syndrome. And this is important to know the difference. 00:03:50.360 --> 00:03:53.199 So perhaps a good way to look at it is to think 00:03:53.199 --> 00:03:56.759 overtraining is the process. So if you were my 00:03:56.759 --> 00:03:59.840 coach and you were giving me a very aggressive 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:02.280 training block, whether it's high volume, whether 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:04.699 it's high intensity, whether it's a combination 00:04:04.699 --> 00:04:07.020 of both. And let's just say we're in the weight 00:04:07.020 --> 00:04:09.680 room. So you know that you are giving me a very. 00:04:09.770 --> 00:04:13.210 challenging block of training. And so that is... 00:04:13.520 --> 00:04:16.040 Me going in, doing the sets, the reps, the loads, 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:18.459 whatever the rest interval is, whatever the training 00:04:18.459 --> 00:04:21.379 frequency is, whether it's an exercise that has 00:04:21.379 --> 00:04:23.680 what we like to call a high exercise intensity, 00:04:23.819 --> 00:04:26.779 like a squat, a clean, or a leg press, versus 00:04:26.779 --> 00:04:29.240 a low exercise intensity, like a wrist curl. 00:04:29.420 --> 00:04:32.180 Okay, they both can be very difficult and challenging, 00:04:32.259 --> 00:04:34.920 but the total how much it taxes your body is 00:04:34.920 --> 00:04:38.399 quite different. And that is the process, me 00:04:38.399 --> 00:04:42.459 going through that stimulus. And if it's overtraining, 00:04:42.540 --> 00:04:44.750 then... When you're monitoring what I'm doing, 00:04:44.870 --> 00:04:47.769 you're doing some periodic testing or maybe some 00:04:47.769 --> 00:04:50.449 daily assessments or whatever, and you're seeing 00:04:50.449 --> 00:04:53.529 my performance is actually regressing. I'm not 00:04:53.529 --> 00:04:56.250 going in the right direction. And so there's 00:04:56.250 --> 00:04:59.569 the end result being my decreased performance 00:04:59.569 --> 00:05:02.110 and everything else that comes with it. That's 00:05:02.110 --> 00:05:04.790 the syndrome. And that's where you end up. But 00:05:04.790 --> 00:05:07.689 the actual process is the overtraining. And if 00:05:07.689 --> 00:05:10.009 you're the strength coach or the coach of the 00:05:10.009 --> 00:05:13.110 team or whatever, you have the ability to make 00:05:13.110 --> 00:05:16.529 adjustments. Now, if it's done on purpose, and 00:05:16.529 --> 00:05:18.889 that is often done by a lot of good coaches, 00:05:18.930 --> 00:05:22.170 you have a year in a very higher volume, say, 00:05:22.230 --> 00:05:23.990 adjustment. general preparation phase of your 00:05:23.990 --> 00:05:25.730 training. You're trying to get a lot of training 00:05:25.730 --> 00:05:28.389 volume in. You know that that's going to be stressful 00:05:28.389 --> 00:05:31.610 and you don't schedule any competitions at the 00:05:31.610 --> 00:05:34.389 end of that phase because... because of the accumulated 00:05:34.389 --> 00:05:38.009 fatigue. That is often done, but if you're a 00:05:38.009 --> 00:05:40.569 good coach, you know when to pull back on the 00:05:40.569 --> 00:05:43.529 reins to decrease the training stress. That's 00:05:43.529 --> 00:05:46.269 done all the time in sports, and that can be 00:05:46.269 --> 00:05:48.610 done in the weight room as well. A lot of sports 00:05:48.610 --> 00:05:50.870 will have a phase where they may have multiple 00:05:50.870 --> 00:05:53.389 practices in a day, and they'll do that here 00:05:53.389 --> 00:05:55.310 in the United States at the collegiate level 00:05:55.310 --> 00:05:58.290 that's commonly done. For example, American football. 00:05:58.490 --> 00:06:00.810 The athletes report towards the end of summer, 00:06:00.870 --> 00:06:03.689 and they'll have one to two weeks. of two or 00:06:03.689 --> 00:06:07.670 three practices a day. very taxing. It's very 00:06:07.670 --> 00:06:10.910 fatiguing. And there is no game at the end of 00:06:10.910 --> 00:06:13.470 that one or two weeks. There's a recovery phase. 00:06:13.689 --> 00:06:16.149 And the coaches, a good coach knows they can 00:06:16.149 --> 00:06:19.610 push them hard. And some of those later practices 00:06:19.610 --> 00:06:23.509 may be extremely challenging and not high level 00:06:23.509 --> 00:06:26.589 performance. But then you then introduce the 00:06:26.589 --> 00:06:29.410 taper and let's back off because there are several 00:06:29.410 --> 00:06:31.629 weeks before they go into their first competition. 00:06:31.930 --> 00:06:34.370 And so that's what we would call overreaching. 00:06:34.410 --> 00:06:37.089 So performance goes. down. But in a short period 00:06:37.089 --> 00:06:40.209 of recovery, in days or a matter of days or a 00:06:40.209 --> 00:06:42.829 week or two, you can come back and you get a 00:06:42.829 --> 00:06:45.230 benefit. You supercompensate. So that goes to 00:06:45.230 --> 00:06:48.189 some of the work of F .W. Dick. And I mean, that's 00:06:48.189 --> 00:06:50.430 been out there for decades and decades. And it 00:06:50.430 --> 00:06:54.170 looks somewhat like the general adaptation model 00:06:54.170 --> 00:06:57.269 of cellulase, where there is a stress, an alarm 00:06:57.269 --> 00:07:00.529 reaction, a response, and then there is a supercompensation 00:07:00.529 --> 00:07:04.500 and adaptation. Now, that line. On paper, that 00:07:04.500 --> 00:07:06.560 line looks real nice and neat. You come back 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:08.240 and, oh, look, I've made great progress. That 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:10.360 line may look a little different depending on 00:07:10.360 --> 00:07:13.160 a number of factors, but the concept is still 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:15.720 there. The paradigm, meaning the model, in reality, 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:17.600 it doesn't always look the same, but you're following 00:07:17.600 --> 00:07:20.000 the same pattern. You provide a stress to which 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:23.819 the individual can adapt and they can not only 00:07:23.819 --> 00:07:26.600 recover, but they can actually adapt and gain 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:30.319 benefit from it. So that's an example of overreaching, 00:07:30.339 --> 00:07:32.519 but there's two kinds of overreaching. There's 00:07:32.519 --> 00:07:34.670 function. overreaching, which is what I just 00:07:34.670 --> 00:07:36.990 described. So that serves a purpose. You're the 00:07:36.990 --> 00:07:40.089 coach. You look at me and you say, okay, we got 00:07:40.089 --> 00:07:43.269 a super compensation and now Andy's at a little 00:07:43.269 --> 00:07:45.829 bit higher level. And all right, that's great. 00:07:45.949 --> 00:07:48.870 And obviously with highly trained elite level 00:07:48.870 --> 00:07:51.509 athletes, those bumps are going to be little. 00:07:51.589 --> 00:07:54.850 And with people that are less trained, you'll 00:07:54.850 --> 00:07:57.829 see greater, a greater impact. But there's the 00:07:57.829 --> 00:08:00.149 other kind of overreaching is non -functional 00:08:00.149 --> 00:08:02.110 overreaching. And that's where you've provided. 00:08:02.350 --> 00:08:04.850 the stimulus, you've driven the individual down, 00:08:05.029 --> 00:08:07.509 performance, they're in the alarm phase of the 00:08:07.509 --> 00:08:10.310 general adaptation syndrome, and their ability 00:08:10.310 --> 00:08:14.389 to recover is slow. And if they can make it back 00:08:14.389 --> 00:08:17.189 to where they started, then, okay, I'm recovered 00:08:17.189 --> 00:08:19.029 now. But you have to ask yourself, was there 00:08:19.029 --> 00:08:21.209 a benefit to doing that? At least performance 00:08:21.209 --> 00:08:23.290 -wise, I'm not seeing it. Now, are there some 00:08:23.290 --> 00:08:26.610 other positive adaptations? Possibly. But if 00:08:26.610 --> 00:08:29.399 I'm an athlete, I'm... got a season, I have a 00:08:29.399 --> 00:08:32.399 competition schedule that really dictates when 00:08:32.399 --> 00:08:34.870 I need to perform. And that would be, that's 00:08:34.870 --> 00:08:37.470 a type of overtraining, but it's a lesser version. 00:08:37.549 --> 00:08:40.250 It's called non -functional overreaching. I can 00:08:40.250 --> 00:08:42.909 recover. I've kind of messed up my training maybe 00:08:42.909 --> 00:08:46.049 for a few weeks, but I can come back within a 00:08:46.049 --> 00:08:48.730 few weeks. If it's overtraining though, it's 00:08:48.730 --> 00:08:52.450 long -term. It's months to longer. And if I'm 00:08:52.450 --> 00:08:56.490 your athlete, Alex, and you have truly overtrained 00:08:56.490 --> 00:08:58.549 me, first of all, I might be looking for a new 00:08:58.549 --> 00:09:01.529 coach. But also, I'm probably going to have to 00:09:01.529 --> 00:09:04.450 not worry about this athletic season because 00:09:04.450 --> 00:09:08.529 it takes a long time to recover. And that gets 00:09:08.529 --> 00:09:12.009 behind why I think it's an often overused word 00:09:12.009 --> 00:09:14.909 because people, I'll ask my students in class, 00:09:15.009 --> 00:09:17.450 how many of you have overtrained at any time? 00:09:17.549 --> 00:09:20.110 And 80, 90 % of them will raise their hand. Oh, 00:09:20.169 --> 00:09:21.870 yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done that. Well, they've 00:09:21.870 --> 00:09:23.990 gone through stressful phases of training, but 00:09:23.990 --> 00:09:27.049 is it the fully, the full -blown? overtraining 00:09:27.049 --> 00:09:29.629 syndrome where performance is impaired and it 00:09:29.629 --> 00:09:32.389 doesn't come back easily and it takes it takes 00:09:32.389 --> 00:09:35.070 a while and that's not even talking about the 00:09:35.070 --> 00:09:37.830 increased risk of injury which is hard to get 00:09:37.830 --> 00:09:39.730 into because there's so many things that can 00:09:39.730 --> 00:09:43.059 contribute to injury it makes sense that there 00:09:43.059 --> 00:09:45.580 would be a higher risk of injury. But find me 00:09:45.580 --> 00:09:48.039 the data that shows the injury rate after an 00:09:48.039 --> 00:09:50.940 overreaching phase. It's hard to find. So you 00:09:50.940 --> 00:09:54.200 have the full -blown overtraining. You have overreaching 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:56.960 that's functional and can be a good part of the 00:09:56.960 --> 00:09:59.039 training. And you have non -functional, which 00:09:59.039 --> 00:10:01.059 is sort of a waste of time. But if you're fully 00:10:01.059 --> 00:10:04.100 overtrained, you've really messed up your training 00:10:04.100 --> 00:10:06.840 program for quite a period of time. And if you're 00:10:06.840 --> 00:10:10.100 an athlete training for a particular sport, that's 00:10:10.100 --> 00:10:12.679 going to throw a monkey. wrench into your upcoming 00:10:12.679 --> 00:10:15.559 competitions, if not your whole annual training 00:10:15.559 --> 00:10:17.679 cycle. So let's bring it a little bit together. 00:10:17.960 --> 00:10:21.259 So overtraining as a process is putting more 00:10:21.259 --> 00:10:24.039 than the athlete can recover short term. Then 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:27.559 if it's on purpose, then it's overreaching. If 00:10:27.559 --> 00:10:31.019 it worked, an athlete supercompensates and gets 00:10:31.019 --> 00:10:34.580 better. That's functional overreaching. If they 00:10:34.580 --> 00:10:39.000 barely recover, didn't improve, that's non -functional. 00:10:39.470 --> 00:10:43.629 And then if this non -recovery persists and they 00:10:43.629 --> 00:10:46.429 don't get, not only not get a super compensation, 00:10:46.710 --> 00:10:49.330 they also do not recover to the baseline. They 00:10:49.330 --> 00:10:53.409 basically stay run down and it goes for a certain 00:10:53.409 --> 00:10:56.169 period of time. That's overtraining syndrome. 00:10:56.529 --> 00:11:00.279 Yeah, that summarizes it pretty well. I also 00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:02.899 want to point out that the National Strength 00:11:02.899 --> 00:11:06.039 and Conditioning Association has their text that 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:08.580 kind of goes along with their certification, 00:11:08.860 --> 00:11:11.059 the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:12.980 And before too long, they're going to be coming 00:11:12.980 --> 00:11:14.899 out with their fifth edition, and they've added 00:11:14.899 --> 00:11:18.100 a chapter on this thing, overtraining, and how 00:11:18.100 --> 00:11:20.279 it might apply to the strength and conditioning 00:11:20.279 --> 00:11:22.860 professional. And in there, there's a diagram 00:11:22.860 --> 00:11:26.740 that refers to... There's also some that's stressful 00:11:26.740 --> 00:11:30.259 training. So just because a coach prescribes 00:11:30.259 --> 00:11:34.580 stressful training session or a stressful phase, 00:11:34.720 --> 00:11:37.360 that's not necessarily over. You may not have 00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:39.679 a decrease in performance. You may be tired and 00:11:39.679 --> 00:11:42.139 fatigued, but you're fine. And that happens all 00:11:42.139 --> 00:11:44.539 the time with aggressive training and especially 00:11:44.539 --> 00:11:48.200 in athletes that have a very specific focus. 00:11:48.299 --> 00:11:52.139 I'm trying to perform the best I can in my sport, 00:11:52.299 --> 00:11:55.360 reach my goal for this. this mesocycle or for 00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:57.480 this quadrennium, you know, if I'm an Olympic 00:11:57.480 --> 00:12:00.399 level athlete or whatever, I'm really reaching 00:12:00.399 --> 00:12:03.179 for that. And so, yes, you're going to have stressful 00:12:03.179 --> 00:12:06.080 training, but, and I will have times where I 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:08.740 would like to have functional overreaching, but 00:12:08.740 --> 00:12:11.220 stressful training doesn't necessarily end up 00:12:11.220 --> 00:12:13.580 with impaired performance. All the others do. 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:16.740 Sometimes you know it. I tell you a great example, 00:12:16.919 --> 00:12:19.440 functional overreaching is done all the time 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:22.940 in the American collegiate system with swimming. 00:12:23.019 --> 00:12:25.919 And so the collegiate swim season here in the 00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:28.299 U .S. is sometime, you know, starts sometime 00:12:28.299 --> 00:12:31.559 in the fall. And then you have the holiday break 00:12:31.559 --> 00:12:33.980 with Christmas and New Year's. And then they 00:12:33.980 --> 00:12:36.779 go into the spring. And so they got this break 00:12:36.779 --> 00:12:39.259 kind of in the middle. Well, what do we do during 00:12:39.259 --> 00:12:42.100 this holiday time? And a lot of them will go 00:12:42.100 --> 00:12:44.740 off to a training camp. Now, mind you, it's about 00:12:44.740 --> 00:12:47.259 a third of the way or a fourth or a third of 00:12:47.259 --> 00:12:49.679 the way into their season. But they're going 00:12:49.679 --> 00:12:51.879 to go do a training camp. And quite often they 00:12:51.879 --> 00:12:55.480 do. insane volumes. They swim crazy distances. 00:12:55.759 --> 00:12:58.620 And what I find fascinating is it's not unusual 00:12:58.620 --> 00:13:01.340 that they'll schedule a meet right at the end 00:13:01.340 --> 00:13:04.519 of that. And everybody knows that their times 00:13:04.519 --> 00:13:06.899 will not be great, but they want to see, well, 00:13:06.960 --> 00:13:09.789 where are we though? So. Not as fast as I need 00:13:09.789 --> 00:13:12.169 to be where I'm going, but I'm really aiming 00:13:12.169 --> 00:13:14.870 for out here, the big competitions at the end. 00:13:14.950 --> 00:13:17.789 You know, that's a type of a sport like athletics 00:13:17.789 --> 00:13:20.570 or track and field or, you know, swimming is 00:13:20.570 --> 00:13:23.470 a good example. Any kind of sport that's an individual 00:13:23.470 --> 00:13:26.809 sport, even though you're on a team or a relay, 00:13:26.909 --> 00:13:30.549 you still swim individually. They can aim for 00:13:30.549 --> 00:13:33.230 a contest at the end of their season. Whereas 00:13:33.230 --> 00:13:36.409 if it's a team sport, I can't sacrifice too many 00:13:36.409 --> 00:13:38.659 games along the way. have to have a good, good 00:13:38.659 --> 00:13:41.600 record throughout the entire year. So that's 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:44.080 a great example of functional overreaching. And 00:13:44.080 --> 00:13:47.139 the coaches know it's going to be ugly after 00:13:47.139 --> 00:13:49.759 that training block. The athletes know it. And 00:13:49.759 --> 00:13:51.679 they, in, you know, I used to have a roommate 00:13:51.679 --> 00:13:54.460 who laughed about it. He says, oh yeah, it was 00:13:54.460 --> 00:13:56.799 terrible times. But, but maybe they, you know, 00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:59.299 they get to be able to gauge, okay, how stressful 00:13:59.299 --> 00:14:01.379 was it? And that helps the coach moving forward. 00:14:01.480 --> 00:14:03.539 So now they've got, they didn't do a special 00:14:03.539 --> 00:14:06.120 test, but it really is that monitoring your athletes. 00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:08.519 Let's do a. real competition. You've got real 00:14:08.519 --> 00:14:11.360 opponents. It's not just a scrimmage in practice 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:13.700 or a time trial. And let's see where you are. 00:14:13.799 --> 00:14:16.799 And then we can adjust your training if need 00:14:16.799 --> 00:14:20.090 be from there on out. how hard it is to push 00:14:20.090 --> 00:14:23.570 the athletes over the edge. How hard it is to 00:14:23.570 --> 00:14:28.330 go from a non -functional overreaching to overtraining 00:14:28.330 --> 00:14:30.830 syndrome. Years ago, I wish I could remember 00:14:30.830 --> 00:14:33.210 who it was. I was at a conference, I think it 00:14:33.210 --> 00:14:36.090 was in Europe, and one of the speakers on this 00:14:36.090 --> 00:14:40.049 topic started out by saying, you can train as 00:14:40.049 --> 00:14:43.710 long as you want, as hard as you want, as often 00:14:43.710 --> 00:14:46.620 as you want. And then he paused and he said, 00:14:46.700 --> 00:14:49.700 as long as you allow for recovery. And so that's 00:14:49.700 --> 00:14:51.960 the other piece of the, you know, yes, you can 00:14:51.960 --> 00:14:54.279 train hard, but that means, well, you have to 00:14:54.279 --> 00:14:56.759 make sure you're recovered. If I don't have a 00:14:56.759 --> 00:14:59.440 good measure of assessing, like the person at 00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:02.200 my fitness center, you know, maybe not doing 00:15:02.200 --> 00:15:04.299 the best training program, but I don't really 00:15:04.299 --> 00:15:07.860 have something I can gauge them with. an athlete, 00:15:07.980 --> 00:15:10.539 I should have something I can monitor it with, 00:15:10.600 --> 00:15:13.100 whether it's a physical performance test, whether 00:15:13.100 --> 00:15:16.220 it is a survey or questionnaire. How do you keep 00:15:16.220 --> 00:15:18.820 them from going over? That's a challenging one 00:15:18.820 --> 00:15:23.100 if you're on the edge. I do know many years ago, 00:15:23.139 --> 00:15:25.460 I think I was in graduate school, American College 00:15:25.460 --> 00:15:29.700 of Sports Medicine had a one -day workshop on 00:15:29.700 --> 00:15:32.159 overtraining. So this would have been back, I 00:15:32.159 --> 00:15:35.100 don't know, 1990 or something. And I'm sitting 00:15:35.100 --> 00:15:37.860 there as a student like, oh yeah, this is awesome. 00:15:37.980 --> 00:15:40.620 I'm going to take notes. I had my notepad out. 00:15:40.679 --> 00:15:43.019 I'm going to get everything down. And on one 00:15:43.019 --> 00:15:46.740 side of the stage were coaches that were national 00:15:46.740 --> 00:15:49.779 level coaches and clearly had done something 00:15:49.779 --> 00:15:52.590 right. to work their way up to working with the 00:15:52.590 --> 00:15:54.610 level of athletes that they had. On the other 00:15:54.610 --> 00:15:57.350 side were the sports scientists. And everybody, 00:15:57.730 --> 00:16:00.090 they went down and everyone had their opening 00:16:00.090 --> 00:16:02.389 statement. And every single sports scientist 00:16:02.389 --> 00:16:05.330 said, yeah, overtraining is really, really hard. 00:16:06.110 --> 00:16:09.129 It's bad. It's terrible. We got to do something 00:16:09.129 --> 00:16:11.429 about it. We need to study it. Then they went 00:16:11.429 --> 00:16:14.149 down to the coaches. And every single coach said, 00:16:14.250 --> 00:16:17.330 yeah, we agree. Overtraining is bad. Now, we 00:16:17.330 --> 00:16:19.490 haven't really had a problem with that on our 00:16:19.490 --> 00:16:22.200 team. But and I'm sitting there listening to 00:16:22.200 --> 00:16:24.919 every single coach say that. And I thought my 00:16:24.919 --> 00:16:26.919 first thought was like, OK, these guys are pretty 00:16:26.919 --> 00:16:28.720 arrogant. You know, I don't have that problem. 00:16:28.899 --> 00:16:31.860 But then as the more I thought about it afterwards, 00:16:32.100 --> 00:16:35.179 it's like, well, there's a reason that they're 00:16:35.179 --> 00:16:38.980 coaching at that level and their full time job. 00:16:39.629 --> 00:16:42.509 is to keep track of these athletes. And in some 00:16:42.509 --> 00:16:45.029 cases they were large teams or large groups. 00:16:45.149 --> 00:16:48.409 In some cases it was, you know, just small groups 00:16:48.409 --> 00:16:52.169 or individuals, but that is their livelihood. 00:16:52.230 --> 00:16:56.419 So everything revolves around. I got to do everything 00:16:56.419 --> 00:16:59.679 I can to make sure this athlete is where they 00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:03.480 are. And the researcher, and that's me, sits 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:06.299 in their university in their white lab coats 00:17:06.299 --> 00:17:08.940 and comes up with all these theories and ideas. 00:17:09.240 --> 00:17:11.819 And that's where I think if someone really wants 00:17:11.819 --> 00:17:13.980 to work in this arena, they need to have worn 00:17:13.980 --> 00:17:16.359 both hats. And if they haven't, they need to 00:17:16.359 --> 00:17:19.859 be talking all the time to the people who are 00:17:19.859 --> 00:17:22.500 doing the training. Well, the athlete too, but 00:17:22.500 --> 00:17:25.220 especially the coaches. And if I'm... you know, 00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:27.359 to find out, okay, what's going on in the real 00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:29.440 world. And if someone has experience on both 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:32.799 sides of that equation, then good for them. But 00:17:32.799 --> 00:17:35.059 yeah, it's hard because you got to push them 00:17:35.059 --> 00:17:36.960 hard. You're also keeping track. Part of the 00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:39.640 training program is the recovery. So you can 00:17:39.640 --> 00:17:41.759 give me my sets and reps and my workout, and 00:17:41.759 --> 00:17:44.059 you can give me the next six months worth, and 00:17:44.059 --> 00:17:46.220 I'm going to be ready for whatever that competition 00:17:46.220 --> 00:17:49.779 is. But in there too is, you know, okay, there's 00:17:49.779 --> 00:17:52.500 going to be activities you prescribe to that 00:17:52.500 --> 00:17:55.609 are for recovery. And that's part of the total 00:17:55.609 --> 00:17:58.710 picture. And so, yeah, you can't run in high 00:17:58.710 --> 00:18:01.690 gear all the time. I mean, those are good. That's 00:18:01.690 --> 00:18:04.269 a simple question, but it's such a broad issue. 00:18:04.390 --> 00:18:06.190 That's a really good one. So what I'm hearing 00:18:06.190 --> 00:18:10.230 is overtraining syndrome is a bad thing and we 00:18:10.230 --> 00:18:13.890 should avoid it. In reality, if the coaching 00:18:13.890 --> 00:18:17.289 is done carefully and monitored, it may not be 00:18:17.289 --> 00:18:21.470 such a big issue because the recovery response 00:18:21.470 --> 00:18:26.089 of the athlete is taken into account when planning 00:18:26.089 --> 00:18:29.470 the next stage of training or how much they should 00:18:29.470 --> 00:18:31.809 recover and so on. Do you think we could move 00:18:31.809 --> 00:18:35.970 into symptoms? So what the coaches should be 00:18:35.970 --> 00:18:39.130 paying attention to in terms of walking this 00:18:39.130 --> 00:18:42.660 line of pushing the performance? and making athletes 00:18:42.660 --> 00:18:46.480 to adapt in an optimal way, but also not tipping 00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:49.680 them over into overtraining syndrome? Well, yeah, 00:18:49.759 --> 00:18:53.039 that's really a $64 ,000 question in that it's 00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:55.920 how can I recognize it? You know, I mentioned 00:18:55.920 --> 00:18:58.500 a couple of minutes ago, the coach paying attention 00:18:58.500 --> 00:19:01.940 to their athletes and just observing it. And 00:19:01.940 --> 00:19:04.559 that's pretty vague. It's not scientific, but 00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:07.299 that is really the front line. Psychological 00:19:07.299 --> 00:19:09.700 questions and questionnaires, and there are some 00:19:09.700 --> 00:19:12.369 good... instruments out there that can be used. 00:19:12.430 --> 00:19:14.930 Some of them are very long. Some of them have 00:19:14.930 --> 00:19:17.650 been a lot shorter. And just you have to be careful 00:19:17.650 --> 00:19:19.970 making up your own questionnaires because creating 00:19:19.970 --> 00:19:22.869 a good questionnaire or survey instrument is 00:19:22.869 --> 00:19:25.549 easier said than done. There's quite a skill 00:19:25.549 --> 00:19:28.150 to it. But there are some validated tools available. 00:19:28.509 --> 00:19:30.789 Would you have any examples on top of your head? 00:19:30.950 --> 00:19:33.789 Yeah. One is, well, there are several. Even though 00:19:33.789 --> 00:19:36.170 it was not designed for sport, there's an instrument 00:19:36.170 --> 00:19:38.230 called the Profile of Mood State. And there was 00:19:38.230 --> 00:19:41.710 a researcher who who's long retired now, but 00:19:41.710 --> 00:19:44.410 Bill Morgan, who did a lot of work. Patrick O 00:19:44.410 --> 00:19:47.009 'Connor followed up with some work with Profile 00:19:47.009 --> 00:19:49.349 of Mood State, which is not for sport, it's just 00:19:49.349 --> 00:19:51.869 in general, but they saw of the categories of 00:19:51.869 --> 00:19:54.190 questions, they called it an iceberg profile 00:19:54.190 --> 00:19:57.349 that showed the scoring, and then there was one 00:19:57.349 --> 00:20:01.109 variable where if it was actually low, flipped, 00:20:01.130 --> 00:20:03.869 sort of like an iceberg, you got a problem. Now, 00:20:03.930 --> 00:20:06.160 there was a lot of research on it. One of the 00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:08.980 challenges is it's not a short questionnaire. 00:20:09.279 --> 00:20:12.160 There's the rescue. Michael Kellman out of Germany 00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:15.740 has developed that and variations of it. We've 00:20:15.740 --> 00:20:18.859 done a little bit with it, and there's different 00:20:18.859 --> 00:20:21.200 lengths of one. So one of the challenges with 00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:23.599 questionnaires is, can it be short enough that 00:20:23.599 --> 00:20:28.150 you can administer? Can you ensure that your 00:20:28.150 --> 00:20:31.170 athlete is going to be honest? Because they can 00:20:31.170 --> 00:20:33.269 say, oh, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. And so how 00:20:33.269 --> 00:20:35.430 you write your questionnaire, I don't know if 00:20:35.430 --> 00:20:37.529 you've ever noticed, when you take an exam or 00:20:37.529 --> 00:20:39.750 a survey, sometimes they'll ask you the same 00:20:39.750 --> 00:20:42.690 question multiple times. It's worded differently. 00:20:42.869 --> 00:20:46.410 And sometimes it's flipped. So I'm saying yes, 00:20:46.650 --> 00:20:49.670 and then they reword it. And I say yes, and then 00:20:49.670 --> 00:20:52.369 they reword it. Well, I need to say no or something. 00:20:52.650 --> 00:20:55.029 And that's an internal check to make. sure that 00:20:55.029 --> 00:20:57.650 people aren't just going, yes, yes, yes, yes, 00:20:57.650 --> 00:21:00.210 yes. And so there's ways that a researcher can 00:21:00.210 --> 00:21:02.529 establish that there's good internal validity 00:21:02.529 --> 00:21:05.170 to these tests. And so they have to do research 00:21:05.170 --> 00:21:08.190 to make sure that, one, it's repeatable. Two, 00:21:08.430 --> 00:21:11.869 it's valid. It actually is sensitive to what 00:21:11.869 --> 00:21:14.480 you're trying to measure. my fatigue state or 00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:18.420 whatever. We had a very simple little 15 question 00:21:18.420 --> 00:21:20.799 item that we just put on the back of their training 00:21:20.799 --> 00:21:23.180 sheet for the day. And before they did it, they'd 00:21:23.180 --> 00:21:26.359 sit down and consistently the questions dealing 00:21:26.359 --> 00:21:28.980 with their ability to look forward to today's 00:21:28.980 --> 00:21:31.039 workout. That was one that really stood out. 00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:33.180 You know, do you feel recovered? Are you sore? 00:21:33.420 --> 00:21:36.200 You know, those are physical traits, but you 00:21:36.200 --> 00:21:38.519 know, my own perceptions of how I'm doing, but 00:21:38.519 --> 00:21:41.839 then also, yeah, I'm ready to go. And sometimes 00:21:42.220 --> 00:21:44.460 you know, everyone has workouts that they don't. 00:21:44.650 --> 00:21:46.990 particularly want to do. I'm not looking forward, 00:21:47.130 --> 00:21:49.529 but what's the pattern? And I may always score 00:21:49.529 --> 00:21:51.690 it up here. You may always score it here. So 00:21:51.690 --> 00:21:53.589 you have to see what's normal for that person. 00:21:53.690 --> 00:21:56.329 So you can't just hand it out one day and because 00:21:56.329 --> 00:21:58.509 it's like, oh, you've got no baseline. You know, 00:21:58.529 --> 00:22:00.890 there's some other things that get a little fancier 00:22:00.890 --> 00:22:03.349 in that. And yet this gets into the physiology, 00:22:03.710 --> 00:22:05.990 what's going on in the body, which is what has 00:22:05.990 --> 00:22:08.170 really triggered a lot of my interest. You know, 00:22:08.190 --> 00:22:11.670 you see changes in cardiovascular activity, changes 00:22:11.670 --> 00:22:14.079 in resting heart rates, changes in heart. rate 00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:16.160 variability. You know, heart rate variability 00:22:16.160 --> 00:22:20.859 has been used for decades in cardiology, you 00:22:20.859 --> 00:22:23.960 know, from a medical standpoint. How well heart 00:22:23.960 --> 00:22:27.240 rate variability data is collected is another 00:22:27.240 --> 00:22:29.480 issue, because I know technologies out there 00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:31.720 that let you collect it real quickly and put, 00:22:31.779 --> 00:22:33.460 I'm not wearing it right now, I can wear one 00:22:33.460 --> 00:22:36.750 of my smart watches. I can hit a button. There's 00:22:36.750 --> 00:22:39.109 my heart rate variability while I'm sitting here 00:22:39.109 --> 00:22:41.289 talking to you. Is that a valid way to do it? 00:22:41.349 --> 00:22:43.630 Usually it's done when you're in a rested state. 00:22:44.009 --> 00:22:46.410 There's different ways to analyze it. And so 00:22:46.410 --> 00:22:48.890 that's helpful. Resting heart rate, you know, 00:22:48.890 --> 00:22:51.650 distance runners use this a lot. By the time 00:22:51.650 --> 00:22:55.049 you see your resting heart rate, when you're 00:22:55.049 --> 00:22:57.410 beginning to move into overtraining or stressful 00:22:57.410 --> 00:22:59.869 training, it goes down. And so for a distance 00:22:59.869 --> 00:23:02.650 runner, that's tricky because as I become more 00:23:02.650 --> 00:23:05.140 aerobically fit, my heart... resting heart rate 00:23:05.140 --> 00:23:07.880 goes down. But these are already highly, highly 00:23:07.880 --> 00:23:10.819 fit people. And yet they see a depression in 00:23:10.819 --> 00:23:12.619 their resting heart rate. And that's related 00:23:12.619 --> 00:23:15.579 to their parasympathetic nervous system. The 00:23:15.579 --> 00:23:17.900 parasympathetic and sympathetic, the balance 00:23:17.900 --> 00:23:20.640 between the two branches of the autonomic nervous 00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:23.480 system, parasympathetic input predominates. And 00:23:23.480 --> 00:23:25.519 so for a number of years, they've talked about 00:23:25.519 --> 00:23:29.099 parasympathetic overtraining syndrome. Some critics 00:23:29.099 --> 00:23:31.539 of that term I think I've gotten it twisted. 00:23:31.740 --> 00:23:34.779 Just because your parasympathetic nervous system 00:23:34.779 --> 00:23:38.099 is predominating doesn't mean that's what caused 00:23:38.099 --> 00:23:41.180 overtraining. It's a result. It's part of the 00:23:41.180 --> 00:23:43.380 syndrome. You've done the training that's created 00:23:43.380 --> 00:23:46.480 that. And you see that mostly in distance runners 00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:49.279 because they do these huge volumes of work. And 00:23:49.279 --> 00:23:50.759 I don't care what you do in the weight room, 00:23:50.839 --> 00:23:53.539 you can't do the same volume of work just because 00:23:53.539 --> 00:23:55.960 it's at a much higher intensity in the weight 00:23:55.960 --> 00:23:58.519 room. The other is sympathetic overtraining syndrome, 00:23:58.660 --> 00:24:01.579 which had been hypothesized for a number of years, 00:24:01.619 --> 00:24:04.700 but it wasn't seen until like the early 90s in 00:24:04.700 --> 00:24:08.160 the weight room where you had your basal levels 00:24:08.160 --> 00:24:12.299 of, in this case, circulating. epinephrine and 00:24:12.299 --> 00:24:14.980 norepinephrine are elevated. And the theory, 00:24:15.019 --> 00:24:17.240 the idea is, okay, you're trying to maintain 00:24:17.240 --> 00:24:20.079 performance levels. So let's increase sympathetic 00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:23.160 activity. Circulating epinephrine or adrenaline 00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:26.819 is a potent stimulator of performance and part 00:24:26.819 --> 00:24:29.200 of the fight or flight response. If I'm in an 00:24:29.200 --> 00:24:32.180 emergency fight or flight, okay, I got to survive. 00:24:32.539 --> 00:24:35.160 If I'm going in to do a training session, okay, 00:24:35.259 --> 00:24:37.940 it's not life -threatening, but I'm challenging 00:24:37.940 --> 00:24:40.700 myself. And so it's a kind of a different. version 00:24:40.700 --> 00:24:43.480 of it. So I want an epinephrine response and 00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:46.259 I will get one for sure. But this is kind of 00:24:46.259 --> 00:24:48.859 like when it's out of whack and I'm becoming 00:24:48.859 --> 00:24:51.680 fatigued and my body says, wait a minute, let's 00:24:51.680 --> 00:24:55.799 pump out a little more at rest. And at some point 00:24:55.799 --> 00:24:58.779 you get to where you can't get the same epinephrine 00:24:58.779 --> 00:25:00.779 response because I'm... Some people like to use 00:25:00.779 --> 00:25:03.440 the term adrenal exhaustion and it kind of, I 00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:05.960 just don't have it in the tank. And so that's 00:25:05.960 --> 00:25:08.759 where you as the coach, suppose you're putting 00:25:08.759 --> 00:25:11.940 on a, you know, like a down in your country, 00:25:12.119 --> 00:25:14.819 a gym aware is huge. I'm putting on some kind 00:25:14.819 --> 00:25:17.180 of a velocity sensor, whether it's gym aware 00:25:17.180 --> 00:25:21.240 or Tendo or lead form with their cameras or any 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:25.099 one of the IMUs you attach to a bar, but you'll 00:25:25.099 --> 00:25:28.039 see, okay, velocities are just a little bit slower. 00:25:28.480 --> 00:25:30.859 And we've seen that multiple times. But what's 00:25:30.859 --> 00:25:33.440 interesting, you as the coach, you can visually 00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:36.740 see it. And we've actually documented that where 00:25:36.740 --> 00:25:39.140 we had people observing our subjects and they 00:25:39.140 --> 00:25:42.000 said, I think there's a problem going on right 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:44.240 now. And sure enough, the velocities are off 00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:46.619 just a little bit. And the average person wouldn't 00:25:46.619 --> 00:25:48.619 see a single difference. But it's like, yeah, 00:25:48.740 --> 00:25:52.019 not quite as zippy today when they should be. 00:25:52.140 --> 00:25:54.359 And we look at the numbers and it's like, yeah. 00:25:54.500 --> 00:25:58.109 Well, if my autonomic nervous system is... differently, 00:25:58.609 --> 00:26:01.349 that affects everything. I mean, there's so much. 00:26:01.349 --> 00:26:03.670 So whether it's a metabolic activity, energy 00:26:03.670 --> 00:26:06.569 availability, whether it's contractility of the 00:26:06.569 --> 00:26:09.109 muscle, there's relationships between sympathetic 00:26:09.109 --> 00:26:12.369 or autonomic nervous system activity and the 00:26:12.369 --> 00:26:14.829 endocrine system. So that's another thing people 00:26:14.829 --> 00:26:17.349 say, well, you can measure certain hormones and, 00:26:17.369 --> 00:26:20.349 you know, the classic is testosterone or cortisol 00:26:20.349 --> 00:26:23.269 or the ratio between the two. But I can say this, 00:26:23.329 --> 00:26:27.230 those hormones will change in response just to 00:26:27.230 --> 00:26:29.400 stressful training. It may not be overtraining. 00:26:29.539 --> 00:26:31.960 It's just, yeah, we've had a good, tough week 00:26:31.960 --> 00:26:34.579 here and challenged it, and those hormones respond. 00:26:34.660 --> 00:26:37.160 So they're more indicative of stressful training. 00:26:37.279 --> 00:26:40.279 If you are overtrained, yeah, it's even, you 00:26:40.279 --> 00:26:42.259 know, they are affected. But by the time they 00:26:42.259 --> 00:26:44.220 go down, you've already kind of messed things 00:26:44.220 --> 00:26:46.799 up. It's like, oh, so you really like to look 00:26:46.799 --> 00:26:49.940 for something that is either a precursor or something 00:26:49.940 --> 00:26:52.160 that's really sensitive so you can pick it up 00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:54.799 right away, unless you are purposely pushing 00:26:54.799 --> 00:26:57.539 someone into a functional overreaching state. 00:26:57.579 --> 00:27:00.680 So you're balancing a lot of things. The nervous 00:27:00.680 --> 00:27:03.630 system. The ability to recruit motor units, a 00:27:03.630 --> 00:27:06.630 little bit of evidence, but not enough on what 00:27:06.630 --> 00:27:09.369 goes on. But I'm thoroughly convinced something's 00:27:09.369 --> 00:27:11.309 definitely going on because you're trying to 00:27:11.309 --> 00:27:13.849 do whatever your sport is or you're trying to 00:27:13.849 --> 00:27:16.230 lift in the weight room and it's not working 00:27:16.230 --> 00:27:18.450 quite right. Well, clearly something's going 00:27:18.450 --> 00:27:20.710 on with the neuromuscular system. And I'm not 00:27:20.710 --> 00:27:22.789 even talking about injuries. Everyone likes to 00:27:22.789 --> 00:27:24.670 say, oh, increased risk of injuries. That's a 00:27:24.670 --> 00:27:26.910 hard one because you get, you know, the data 00:27:26.910 --> 00:27:29.430 is not good for that. But on the other hand, 00:27:29.430 --> 00:27:32.059 it makes sense that. yeah, you're fatigued. There 00:27:32.059 --> 00:27:35.740 is data that shows being fatigued during a soccer 00:27:35.740 --> 00:27:37.960 match or a football match. Yeah, more injuries 00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:40.500 occur later in the second half and so forth. 00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:42.720 So, I mean, there is some evidence, but as it 00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:45.140 relates to overtraining, whenever we've studied 00:27:45.140 --> 00:27:47.519 it and we've done it in the lab, we have to avoid 00:27:47.519 --> 00:27:50.440 injuries because we do not want to do anything 00:27:50.440 --> 00:27:53.660 to put the subjects at risk. And that's why we've 00:27:53.660 --> 00:27:56.319 also avoided delayed onset muscle soreness as 00:27:56.319 --> 00:27:58.559 a symptom. Because, I mean, that can contribute 00:27:58.559 --> 00:28:01.000 to impaired performances. but that's not the 00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:04.640 slow creep into overtraining. That's like, okay, 00:28:04.680 --> 00:28:07.579 I did something way too much and something I'm 00:28:07.579 --> 00:28:10.400 not accustomed to. And with high -level athletes, 00:28:10.579 --> 00:28:14.200 can that occur? Sure. With beginners, yeah, all 00:28:14.200 --> 00:28:16.460 the time. High -level athletes, it's a little 00:28:16.460 --> 00:28:18.240 bit different because they're already highly 00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:21.220 accustomed, highly trained. So what's the best 00:28:21.220 --> 00:28:24.900 symptom? I don't know, but this gets me into 00:28:24.900 --> 00:28:28.660 what I wanted you to ask is... something called 00:28:28.660 --> 00:28:32.640 the allostatic load. So we're talking about what's 00:28:32.640 --> 00:28:34.779 going on with the set. If we're in the weight 00:28:34.779 --> 00:28:36.619 room, the sets and the reps and the frequency, 00:28:36.859 --> 00:28:41.180 what exercises, et cetera. Okay. And the recovery 00:28:41.180 --> 00:28:44.599 that you are or aren't prescribing for me, that's 00:28:44.599 --> 00:28:47.779 a direct connection to overtraining. That is 00:28:47.779 --> 00:28:50.319 the process. But there are a lot of other things 00:28:50.319 --> 00:28:53.079 that people say, oh, this contributes to overtraining. 00:28:53.119 --> 00:28:56.079 Say, for example, your diet. Okay, I can eat 00:28:56.079 --> 00:28:57.759 a lousy diet. That's going to be problematic. 00:28:58.039 --> 00:29:01.119 I may be fatigued and I'm not glycogen loading 00:29:01.119 --> 00:29:04.599 or replenishing. I may be, so I'm not getting 00:29:04.599 --> 00:29:08.619 enough carbs. Sleep. Yeah, I'm not getting adequate 00:29:08.619 --> 00:29:11.420 sleep. That can be a problem. But none of that 00:29:11.420 --> 00:29:14.640 is training. You know, that is part of all this 00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:18.299 other stuff in your life that goes on. Relationships 00:29:18.299 --> 00:29:21.059 with friends and family. Your job demands. I 00:29:21.059 --> 00:29:23.539 had to work overtime two nights this week. Okay, 00:29:23.740 --> 00:29:27.339 travel. time zones. Did I come down with an illness 00:29:27.339 --> 00:29:30.599 or disease? Wow. I come in and I'm just really 00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:33.079 dragging all this week. And then we find out, 00:29:33.099 --> 00:29:35.579 yeah, I'm coming down with the flu. Oh, no wonder. 00:29:35.740 --> 00:29:37.839 It wasn't the training. It was something else. 00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:40.900 Or was it? Did the training make me more susceptible? 00:29:41.099 --> 00:29:43.160 Because my immune system might be compromised 00:29:43.160 --> 00:29:46.059 and there's evidence of that. So you have all 00:29:46.059 --> 00:29:49.119 these other factors, which I'll call secondary 00:29:49.119 --> 00:29:52.660 factors. Are they important? Yes. But just because 00:29:52.660 --> 00:29:55.920 I don't have a good diet doesn't mean I'm overtrained. 00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:59.200 And yet that can affect my performance. So it 00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:01.259 can contribute to the overtraining syndrome, 00:30:01.380 --> 00:30:04.019 but it works both ways. An overtraining syndrome 00:30:04.019 --> 00:30:07.119 can contribute to all of those things. So maybe 00:30:07.119 --> 00:30:10.200 I'm not eating well. Maybe I am coming down with 00:30:10.200 --> 00:30:12.940 a bug because of the training. So did these factors 00:30:12.940 --> 00:30:15.380 contribute to the overtraining syndrome or did 00:30:15.380 --> 00:30:17.599 the overtraining syndrome contribute to these 00:30:17.599 --> 00:30:20.259 factors? And that's a hard one to parse out. 00:30:20.339 --> 00:30:22.779 And yet that's part of the bigger picture. One 00:30:22.779 --> 00:30:25.799 thing you do have control over is the training 00:30:25.799 --> 00:30:28.519 program. So if you know that you have an athlete 00:30:28.519 --> 00:30:31.720 that does have a family, does have to supplement, 00:30:31.960 --> 00:30:33.940 you know, maybe they're on the national team 00:30:33.940 --> 00:30:35.960 and they don't have a full time. OK, I have to 00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:39.200 work also or something. Or I'm a student here 00:30:39.200 --> 00:30:41.240 in the U .S. I'm a collegiate athlete. I've got 00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:43.859 to study and I've got, you know, 15 hours of 00:30:43.859 --> 00:30:47.259 classes each week and everything. OK, then when 00:30:47.259 --> 00:30:49.259 you design the training program, you have to 00:30:49.259 --> 00:30:51.680 take that stuff into account. And so there's 00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:54.210 some. things you can control, other things you 00:30:54.210 --> 00:30:57.170 can't. There's a science to coaching, but there's 00:30:57.170 --> 00:30:59.970 also an art to it that is dependent on the science. 00:31:00.150 --> 00:31:02.569 And that's what makes it kind of exciting, both 00:31:02.569 --> 00:31:05.369 as challenging for the athlete and challenging 00:31:05.369 --> 00:31:07.910 for the coach or the trainer. With your practice, 00:31:08.130 --> 00:31:10.710 coaching practice, for general population all 00:31:10.710 --> 00:31:13.269 the way to elite, would you change your monitoring 00:31:13.269 --> 00:31:15.509 strategies? Now, some of this is just my opinion, 00:31:15.549 --> 00:31:19.869 but it's shaped by the data that I know of. If 00:31:19.869 --> 00:31:21.970 I'm dealing with just the general population, 00:31:22.210 --> 00:31:24.809 I'm thinking back to people that were my clients 00:31:24.809 --> 00:31:28.650 at my facility, you're probably just going to 00:31:28.650 --> 00:31:32.150 use something really simple. How are they feeling? 00:31:32.289 --> 00:31:34.289 You could use questionnaires, but you don't have 00:31:34.289 --> 00:31:36.430 to use written questionnaires. You can use, you 00:31:36.430 --> 00:31:38.430 know, when you walk in the door, I say, Alex, 00:31:38.529 --> 00:31:40.589 how are you doing today? You say, oh, tough day 00:31:40.589 --> 00:31:43.990 at work, you know. Okay, I learned a huge piece 00:31:43.990 --> 00:31:47.119 right there. We're going to go up over 90 % today. 00:31:47.359 --> 00:31:50.039 We'll see. We might not. And, you know, you may 00:31:50.039 --> 00:31:52.140 not have the resources. You may not have the 00:31:52.140 --> 00:31:54.440 time with that kind of population. And it may 00:31:54.440 --> 00:31:56.920 not be as critical. You know, you're not training 00:31:56.920 --> 00:31:59.500 for sport. We'll just back off. We'll change. 00:31:59.680 --> 00:32:02.579 That's okay. With highly trained people, a couple 00:32:02.579 --> 00:32:05.380 things that really have stood out that are simple. 00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:09.039 Whenever we have done sprinting tests, sprinting 00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:12.619 velocity, speed, or the times, you know, we haven't 00:32:12.619 --> 00:32:16.460 broken it down by gait analysis or acceleration 00:32:16.460 --> 00:32:20.119 phases, just simple times for, you know, a 10 00:32:20.119 --> 00:32:23.240 meter sprint to a 40 meter sprint, various distances. 00:32:23.619 --> 00:32:27.819 Sprinting time goes south really quick. And it's 00:32:27.819 --> 00:32:30.619 one of the first things that goes. And even when 00:32:30.619 --> 00:32:33.339 you're not doing sprint training and it's not 00:32:33.339 --> 00:32:35.829 soreness and it's not injury. but we're doing 00:32:35.829 --> 00:32:37.730 other things. For example, in the weight room, 00:32:37.809 --> 00:32:40.190 we know that, you know, we're tracking the diet, 00:32:40.250 --> 00:32:42.630 we're tracking sleep, we're tracking psychological 00:32:42.630 --> 00:32:46.130 and everything. And the decrease in sprint speed 00:32:46.130 --> 00:32:48.690 is pretty amazing. And that's an area I'd like 00:32:48.690 --> 00:32:52.029 to look at more because now you do have the technologies 00:32:52.029 --> 00:32:55.069 to be able to look at step -by -step speed, not 00:32:55.069 --> 00:32:58.289 just five meter intervals and stuff, but what's 00:32:58.289 --> 00:33:00.890 going on. Every coach talks about first step 00:33:00.890 --> 00:33:03.589 speed. Okay. But how do you measure it? And it's 00:33:03.589 --> 00:33:07.769 not an easy test, but you can do it. So that's 00:33:07.769 --> 00:33:11.319 one that I think is important. Power, measures 00:33:11.319 --> 00:33:14.039 of power. So, you know, if you're into weightlifting 00:33:14.039 --> 00:33:16.420 and, you know, I love that sport. Well, the only 00:33:16.420 --> 00:33:19.980 slow thing in weightlifting is standing up after 00:33:19.980 --> 00:33:22.000 you've cleaned it. Okay, I got to grind through 00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:24.700 a front squat. But the clean is fast, the snatch 00:33:24.700 --> 00:33:28.819 is fast, the jerk is fast. And so, but even if 00:33:28.819 --> 00:33:30.880 you're measuring other things, like say squat 00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:33.720 power, and it can be at modest weight, you know, 00:33:33.759 --> 00:33:36.680 70 % or whatever, and it's not hard to track. 00:33:36.740 --> 00:33:39.910 Power, there seems to be a sequence. Speed. is 00:33:39.910 --> 00:33:43.150 affected first, like sprinting speed. Measures 00:33:43.150 --> 00:33:45.369 of power are more sensitive. One of the least 00:33:45.369 --> 00:33:49.390 sensitive is one rep max strength, which I find 00:33:49.390 --> 00:33:51.589 interesting. Your body really preserves that, 00:33:51.690 --> 00:33:54.089 but the ability to use it quickly, it's hard. 00:33:54.130 --> 00:33:58.529 By the time your one RM decreases, you've really... 00:33:58.799 --> 00:34:00.799 dug quite a hole for yourself. We've seen that 00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:03.599 because we've taken subjects to where they've 00:34:03.599 --> 00:34:07.240 lost up to 11 % on average of their one red max, 00:34:07.440 --> 00:34:09.139 which, you know, if I was the coach, I should 00:34:09.139 --> 00:34:12.860 be fired. And it wasn't due to injury or to delayed 00:34:12.860 --> 00:34:15.900 onset muscle soreness. It was due to other things. 00:34:16.099 --> 00:34:18.960 So that's interesting. Related to that, this 00:34:18.960 --> 00:34:21.340 is an area that I think people like to do jump 00:34:21.340 --> 00:34:25.840 testing. And now with Vauld and Hawkins and Pasco 00:34:25.840 --> 00:34:28.460 and all these different companies, dual force 00:34:28.460 --> 00:34:31.719 plates and we've, you know, we find that vertical 00:34:31.719 --> 00:34:34.860 jump height is not as sensitive as some of the 00:34:34.860 --> 00:34:37.039 other metrics. And I know a lot of people think, 00:34:37.280 --> 00:34:39.380 okay, the counter movement part of a vertical 00:34:39.380 --> 00:34:41.780 jump, maybe there's some metrics going on and 00:34:41.780 --> 00:34:43.940 you can really dissect that force time curve. 00:34:44.039 --> 00:34:46.500 Well, which ones exactly? And we're beginning 00:34:46.500 --> 00:34:49.039 to look at different ways to analyze that. The 00:34:49.039 --> 00:34:51.820 overtraining has happened and the athlete is 00:34:51.820 --> 00:34:55.539 not recovering at all. What do we do? Well, you 00:34:55.539 --> 00:34:58.230 know, training program has to be. modified. It's 00:34:58.230 --> 00:35:01.710 likely that you'll see this at more at higher 00:35:01.710 --> 00:35:05.469 levels. And I think maybe, I think it happens 00:35:05.469 --> 00:35:08.889 more when people are self -training rather than, 00:35:08.889 --> 00:35:12.469 you know, at higher levels, your coaching should 00:35:12.469 --> 00:35:15.469 be at least good enough that they can realize 00:35:15.469 --> 00:35:18.309 when, okay, we're a little beat up. And like 00:35:18.309 --> 00:35:22.510 I say, it doesn't happen as often as people think. 00:35:22.889 --> 00:35:26.210 But if it is truly overtraining and it's going 00:35:26.210 --> 00:35:28.889 to take a long time to recover, you have to rule 00:35:28.889 --> 00:35:31.289 out that there's not a medical condition that's 00:35:31.289 --> 00:35:34.150 behind it. Because it's not uncommon that it's 00:35:34.150 --> 00:35:36.530 like, okay, you've got an underlying condition 00:35:36.530 --> 00:35:38.809 that that's why you weren't able to tolerate 00:35:38.809 --> 00:35:42.030 it and other athletes were. So there's that issue. 00:35:42.150 --> 00:35:45.969 There is issue of if it's that severe. You've 00:35:45.969 --> 00:35:48.690 got to either stop your training or you have 00:35:48.690 --> 00:35:51.269 to greatly bring it down, but you have to decrease 00:35:51.269 --> 00:35:53.670 the amount of training. Some of that deals with, 00:35:53.730 --> 00:35:56.869 well, how severe is it? Is it functional or is 00:35:56.869 --> 00:35:59.710 it non -functional overreaching? Okay, you need 00:35:59.710 --> 00:36:01.969 to back off the training and allow that person 00:36:01.969 --> 00:36:04.489 to recover. You know, if you look at, for example, 00:36:04.630 --> 00:36:07.050 banisters and others have done this, fitness 00:36:07.050 --> 00:36:10.710 fatigue models, your fitness level, you can bring 00:36:10.710 --> 00:36:13.679 it up to high. level and it will hang on for 00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:17.699 a while. Your fatigue might also be very high. 00:36:17.820 --> 00:36:20.860 And if you allow recovery, you can decrease the 00:36:20.860 --> 00:36:23.320 fatigue. You may not be at your peak fitness 00:36:23.320 --> 00:36:25.460 level, but you'll still be ahead of where you 00:36:25.460 --> 00:36:28.659 were. And so being able to know, okay, how much 00:36:28.659 --> 00:36:30.800 do we need to back them off? If it's the full 00:36:30.800 --> 00:36:33.639 blown overtraining, some needs to stop because 00:36:33.639 --> 00:36:36.019 your season is probably done. It's not going 00:36:36.019 --> 00:36:38.119 to be, you know, it's probably going to be several 00:36:38.119 --> 00:36:40.860 months. And there are examples of where even 00:36:40.860 --> 00:36:43.219 a A year later, individuals have not returned 00:36:43.219 --> 00:36:46.420 to where they were. So there's several classic 00:36:46.420 --> 00:36:48.940 studies, I think, that Manfred Lehmann and his 00:36:48.940 --> 00:36:51.739 research group, Jürgen Steinecker and his colleagues 00:36:51.739 --> 00:36:54.380 in Germany, did a number of years ago. And they 00:36:54.380 --> 00:36:56.780 looked at middle distance runners, and they had 00:36:56.780 --> 00:36:59.400 a month of really aggressive training. And some 00:36:59.400 --> 00:37:01.639 of them were still showing some of the signs 00:37:01.639 --> 00:37:04.340 even a year later. That's not in the publication, 00:37:04.420 --> 00:37:06.880 but in personal communications, they said that 00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:09.480 was just tough. And it was a volume issue. It 00:37:09.480 --> 00:37:12.369 was not intentional. It was just huge, huge distances 00:37:12.369 --> 00:37:15.829 being run. And so they were able to look at something. 00:37:15.889 --> 00:37:17.829 That's where they saw real strong evidence of 00:37:17.829 --> 00:37:20.030 the parasympathetic overtraining syndrome. And 00:37:20.030 --> 00:37:24.239 so, yeah. Their athletic season was, they were 00:37:24.239 --> 00:37:28.280 done for that year. And they were not studying 00:37:28.280 --> 00:37:31.539 the elite national team members, but they were 00:37:31.539 --> 00:37:34.119 very highly, they were very high performers. 00:37:34.340 --> 00:37:36.739 So they were not just your person who likes to 00:37:36.739 --> 00:37:39.579 go out for a jog three, four, five times a week. 00:37:39.619 --> 00:37:43.380 They were serious competing. And so you have 00:37:43.380 --> 00:37:46.019 to back them off. And that's a killer because 00:37:46.019 --> 00:37:48.199 the athlete does not want to do that, but you 00:37:48.199 --> 00:37:51.360 have to do that. Lesser versions, you have to 00:37:51.360 --> 00:37:54.320 back off somehow or change the form of training. 00:37:54.480 --> 00:37:57.159 And that's where athletic trainers or physios 00:37:57.159 --> 00:38:00.059 that deal with athletes, that's a challenge for 00:38:00.059 --> 00:38:01.880 them because, hey, you need to rest that injury. 00:38:02.039 --> 00:38:04.440 Well, I don't know, maybe I'll sneak a workout 00:38:04.440 --> 00:38:07.420 in. Well, now you're interfering with the recovery. 00:38:07.639 --> 00:38:11.239 And so that is one for sure thing. Now, you also 00:38:11.239 --> 00:38:13.059 have to look at all the, if you're looking at 00:38:13.059 --> 00:38:15.579 the allostatic load, everything else contributing. 00:38:15.920 --> 00:38:18.539 Okay, what's going on with the diet? What's going 00:38:18.539 --> 00:38:21.079 on with sleep? What's going on with work? What's 00:38:21.079 --> 00:38:23.559 going on with, are you healthy? You don't have 00:38:23.559 --> 00:38:26.840 an illness or a sickness or a disease or anything. 00:38:27.059 --> 00:38:29.380 Is it an injury? Okay, that's something different. 00:38:29.440 --> 00:38:31.739 That injury has to recover. So you have to take 00:38:31.739 --> 00:38:34.199 care of that stuff too. But the training is. 00:38:34.380 --> 00:38:36.340 something that strength conditioning code can 00:38:36.340 --> 00:38:40.159 control and you have to hopefully enforce it. 00:38:40.219 --> 00:38:43.679 But the good news is you should be able to pick 00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:46.619 up on it before it gets to that severe, severe 00:38:46.619 --> 00:38:49.760 level. And so what you see in the research studies, 00:38:49.940 --> 00:38:52.579 like the stuff that we've done in our lab, and 00:38:52.579 --> 00:38:55.480 we have several models of training that we do 00:38:55.480 --> 00:38:58.239 in the lab where we're trying to push people 00:38:58.239 --> 00:39:01.420 into a state of overreaching or overtraining. 00:39:01.539 --> 00:39:04.059 And we've had some examples where It's taken 00:39:04.059 --> 00:39:06.699 like several months before people are back to 00:39:06.699 --> 00:39:08.920 where they want to just pick up their normal 00:39:08.920 --> 00:39:11.579 training. That is not a good training program. 00:39:11.760 --> 00:39:15.219 So we actually have had reviewers on the papers 00:39:15.219 --> 00:39:17.900 say, well, this is not a very good training program. 00:39:18.059 --> 00:39:21.530 And it's like, yeah. Exactly. This is very aggressive. 00:39:21.630 --> 00:39:24.949 And in one example, we have people lifting very, 00:39:25.010 --> 00:39:28.489 very heavy. The volume is not very high, but 00:39:28.489 --> 00:39:31.429 it is high for that load. And so we had people 00:39:31.429 --> 00:39:35.449 lifting at maximum loads repeatedly every day 00:39:35.449 --> 00:39:37.690 and so forth, but they never did more than 10 00:39:37.690 --> 00:39:40.590 successful repetitions a day. 10 reps, what's 00:39:40.590 --> 00:39:46.059 that? One. Yeah, exactly. It depends. If I'm 00:39:46.059 --> 00:39:49.820 lifting at 60 % loads, that's nothing. If I'm 00:39:49.820 --> 00:39:54.820 lifting at 100%, yeah, you can't. You can't maintain 00:39:54.820 --> 00:39:57.940 that. And so, yeah, it's a bad program. So, you 00:39:57.940 --> 00:40:00.460 know, hopefully people don't do those kind of 00:40:00.460 --> 00:40:03.159 programs, but some people do. And you can get 00:40:03.159 --> 00:40:05.619 away with it for a little block, but you can't 00:40:05.619 --> 00:40:08.619 do it continuously. Well, I think the tricky 00:40:08.619 --> 00:40:12.280 part is you don't know until you actually run. 00:40:12.440 --> 00:40:15.800 You don't know the barrier of the athlete. until 00:40:15.800 --> 00:40:18.059 you check it. We try not to check it. We try 00:40:18.059 --> 00:40:22.179 to crawl as close as possible, but not tip them 00:40:22.179 --> 00:40:25.000 over. But every update is different. The situation 00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:28.659 they are in at the training block now is different 00:40:28.659 --> 00:40:32.539 than it was two years ago. So that's the artsy 00:40:32.539 --> 00:40:35.039 part, I guess, of coaching. Yeah, you know, you're 00:40:35.039 --> 00:40:37.460 exactly right. And so, yeah, so knowing the training 00:40:37.460 --> 00:40:39.610 history. Knowing the injury history, knowing 00:40:39.610 --> 00:40:41.449 the training history, knowing the competition 00:40:41.449 --> 00:40:44.590 schedule, just knowing all the pieces, that's 00:40:44.590 --> 00:40:47.230 part of it. Sort of related to that, it's been 00:40:47.230 --> 00:40:49.289 a number of years ago, there's a gentleman, a 00:40:49.289 --> 00:40:52.030 researcher who's now at Texas A &M University 00:40:52.030 --> 00:40:55.250 here in the United States, Dr. Brian Mann. And 00:40:55.250 --> 00:40:58.449 a number of years ago, he was at... a university 00:40:58.449 --> 00:41:00.769 right next to our state, University of Missouri. 00:41:00.929 --> 00:41:05.250 And they looked at injury rates on the athletes 00:41:05.250 --> 00:41:07.710 in their athletic department and when it was 00:41:07.710 --> 00:41:11.130 in the academic year or because you have like. 00:41:11.449 --> 00:41:14.510 15 or 16 week long semester, and then there's 00:41:14.510 --> 00:41:16.929 a holiday break, and then after the New Year's, 00:41:16.949 --> 00:41:19.489 another semester like that. But there would be 00:41:19.489 --> 00:41:23.710 the middle of semester is a time where mid -semester 00:41:23.710 --> 00:41:27.250 exams often are. So there's a week where, okay, 00:41:27.349 --> 00:41:30.349 and then at the end you had a week of final exams, 00:41:30.550 --> 00:41:33.349 and then they saw that same thing. in the next 00:41:33.349 --> 00:41:35.550 semester, the rate of injuries on the athletes 00:41:35.550 --> 00:41:37.909 went up just a little bit during those times. 00:41:38.070 --> 00:41:41.010 And it wasn't like astronomical numbers, but 00:41:41.010 --> 00:41:43.510 it was statistically significant. It's like, 00:41:43.570 --> 00:41:45.809 well, what's the difference? And this was across 00:41:45.809 --> 00:41:48.389 a lot of different sports, some in season, some 00:41:48.389 --> 00:41:51.010 not in season. But, well, you've got this stress. 00:41:51.110 --> 00:41:53.519 You know, the assumption is, I got it. papers 00:41:53.519 --> 00:41:57.119 to write. I got classes, exams to study for. 00:41:57.320 --> 00:41:59.579 I don't know how I'm doing. Just all of that. 00:41:59.699 --> 00:42:02.119 And even if you're a very good student, it's 00:42:02.119 --> 00:42:04.500 still a stress. Well, stress is the smallest 00:42:04.500 --> 00:42:07.119 issue, I guess, because athletes in general are 00:42:07.119 --> 00:42:09.320 pretty resilient to stress. They have to perform 00:42:09.320 --> 00:42:12.280 with the audience and so on. But when you're 00:42:12.280 --> 00:42:15.139 running or even on time, like having exams scheduled 00:42:15.139 --> 00:42:18.460 every second day or every day, you have to sacrifice 00:42:18.460 --> 00:42:23.320 something, be it cooking or sleeping. or doing 00:42:23.320 --> 00:42:25.960 recovery practices you would normally do here 00:42:25.960 --> 00:42:28.739 and there, or even getting rested, you know, 00:42:28.760 --> 00:42:31.699 just relaxing. That has to go because there's 00:42:31.699 --> 00:42:34.139 not enough time to fit all the preparation you 00:42:34.139 --> 00:42:36.679 need for the exams, annual, sport, and so on. 00:42:36.780 --> 00:42:39.900 So that's what you say. Exactly. So that's part 00:42:39.900 --> 00:42:42.710 of the allostatic load. The exam schedule does 00:42:42.710 --> 00:42:45.769 not cause overtraining. Does it contribute to 00:42:45.769 --> 00:42:49.769 the total stress load? Yes. Did the tough training 00:42:49.769 --> 00:42:52.670 make it, you know, which came first, the chicken 00:42:52.670 --> 00:42:54.969 or the egg? But it's part of the bigger picture. 00:42:55.070 --> 00:42:57.949 As the coach or the trainer, you can't change. 00:42:58.190 --> 00:43:00.909 That's not under your control, but you can account 00:43:00.909 --> 00:43:03.190 for it in the training. And it's like, that's 00:43:03.190 --> 00:43:06.429 fine. And you build that in. Just like even if 00:43:06.429 --> 00:43:08.840 you were working with a non -athlete. You sit 00:43:08.840 --> 00:43:11.059 down and say, okay, you just want to train for 00:43:11.059 --> 00:43:13.900 health and fitness. And you just bought a three 00:43:13.900 --> 00:43:16.480 -month membership at my facility. And great, 00:43:16.579 --> 00:43:18.619 well, let's see what we can do over three months. 00:43:18.820 --> 00:43:21.579 Oh, by the way, halfway through, I'm going on 00:43:21.579 --> 00:43:25.099 a family vacation for 10 days. Oh, okay. Well, 00:43:25.360 --> 00:43:27.860 I'm not going to tell the client that, well, 00:43:27.900 --> 00:43:29.880 here's your workout. You better do it while you're 00:43:29.880 --> 00:43:33.019 on vacation. It's like, no, well, there's a break. 00:43:33.449 --> 00:43:35.789 I don't control that. And we'll build that into 00:43:35.789 --> 00:43:38.690 the program. So is it, you know, for that person. 00:43:39.099 --> 00:43:41.039 Not a problem. For an athlete, though, there 00:43:41.039 --> 00:43:43.400 are some things you don't control and you have 00:43:43.400 --> 00:43:46.099 to work around it. Competition schedule, travel 00:43:46.099 --> 00:43:48.599 schedule. For a student athlete, there's study 00:43:48.599 --> 00:43:51.000 schedule and class schedule. For someone else, 00:43:51.039 --> 00:43:53.619 it's work schedule, whatever. What do you call 00:43:53.619 --> 00:43:56.179 it? Commute? Maybe I live 45 minutes away from 00:43:56.179 --> 00:43:58.380 the training center. Okay, well, that's an hour 00:43:58.380 --> 00:44:00.559 and a half a day that I just got to get there 00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:03.400 and get home. Or, you know, yeah, there's so 00:44:03.400 --> 00:44:06.480 many factors. But, you know, it's all part of 00:44:06.480 --> 00:44:11.000 the equation. is if you think hard enough and 00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:14.420 broad enough and then close enough about overtraining, 00:44:14.599 --> 00:44:17.320 it's not a problem because you are monitoring 00:44:17.320 --> 00:44:19.159 and you're ready for it and you know your athletes 00:44:19.159 --> 00:44:22.340 and so on. And now what would be your take -home 00:44:22.340 --> 00:44:25.599 message from the topic? So what you really want 00:44:25.599 --> 00:44:28.440 coaches and athletes to pull out on this conversation? 00:44:28.739 --> 00:44:32.659 I think the definition is defined by the ACSM 00:44:32.659 --> 00:44:35.440 and the European College of Sports Science. Does 00:44:35.440 --> 00:44:39.469 that happen? Yes. Not as often as you think with 00:44:39.469 --> 00:44:42.849 high level athletes, because you've got a system 00:44:42.849 --> 00:44:46.469 around you that is helping you avoid that. Now, 00:44:46.469 --> 00:44:49.550 I don't want anyone to say, oh, it really doesn't 00:44:49.550 --> 00:44:53.190 occur that much. It does occur, but it is something 00:44:53.190 --> 00:44:57.039 that can be. with proper monitoring and paying 00:44:57.039 --> 00:45:00.340 attention to your athletes, you should be able 00:45:00.340 --> 00:45:03.559 to pick up on it before it gets too far. So maybe 00:45:03.559 --> 00:45:06.320 I messed up a week or two of training. Maybe 00:45:06.320 --> 00:45:09.840 one of our games we were flat for, but we can 00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:12.840 adjust. We can adjust for that. And keeping track 00:45:12.840 --> 00:45:15.420 both on a personal level with your athletes, 00:45:15.579 --> 00:45:19.059 as well as having some kind of a monitoring system 00:45:19.059 --> 00:45:23.159 in place. There is currently not a single measure 00:45:23.159 --> 00:45:26.239 that is like, yeah, this is a sign we got a problem 00:45:26.239 --> 00:45:29.260 coming, other than performance. And if I'm in 00:45:29.260 --> 00:45:32.340 a sport where it's a stopwatch or a tape measure 00:45:32.340 --> 00:45:36.659 or how many kilos I've lifted, okay, you know, 00:45:36.699 --> 00:45:39.139 changes in performance are... Pretty easy to 00:45:39.139 --> 00:45:41.320 measure. If I'm in a team sport, it's harder 00:45:41.320 --> 00:45:43.900 because, you know, I can kind of hide among the 00:45:43.900 --> 00:45:46.400 other 10 players that are out on the pitch or 00:45:46.400 --> 00:45:49.639 whatever the sport is. But that is one thing 00:45:49.639 --> 00:45:52.179 for sure, seeing how performance is. And just 00:45:52.179 --> 00:45:54.559 because someone has performed poorly doesn't 00:45:54.559 --> 00:45:57.179 mean it's overtraining. Maybe who you played. 00:45:57.539 --> 00:46:00.719 You know, okay, we played the top team in our 00:46:00.719 --> 00:46:03.780 league and we're not so good. And all right, 00:46:03.780 --> 00:46:05.619 yeah, that's going to be a tough game for everyone. 00:46:05.800 --> 00:46:07.820 So you have to, you know, you have to put it. 00:46:07.849 --> 00:46:10.309 in that context, but you should be able to pick 00:46:10.309 --> 00:46:13.730 up on it. And if you can find some measures that 00:46:13.730 --> 00:46:16.909 you can monitor athletes, some of them may be 00:46:16.909 --> 00:46:19.510 on a daily basis, some may be just weekly, some 00:46:19.510 --> 00:46:21.469 may be just periodically. You know, there's some 00:46:21.469 --> 00:46:23.570 assessments you do at the beginning of the season 00:46:23.570 --> 00:46:25.230 and the end of the season. That's not really 00:46:25.230 --> 00:46:27.809 athlete monitoring that's done for other purposes, 00:46:27.889 --> 00:46:30.329 but something that doesn't interfere and you 00:46:30.329 --> 00:46:33.630 can establish a baseline pattern that corresponds 00:46:33.630 --> 00:46:36.130 with the training stress or the competition stress, 00:46:36.329 --> 00:46:39.170 you may find. that there are some variables that 00:46:39.170 --> 00:46:41.289 are sensitive and you find are useful. And then 00:46:41.289 --> 00:46:43.309 putting it together, being able to turn that 00:46:43.309 --> 00:46:45.909 information around quickly so that if adjustment 00:46:45.909 --> 00:46:48.050 needs to be made, it needs to be made now. You 00:46:48.050 --> 00:46:49.869 know, and that's the problem with data coming 00:46:49.869 --> 00:46:54.409 out of the lab that we tried hard to turn data 00:46:54.409 --> 00:46:57.989 around as fast as we could if it was coming from 00:46:57.989 --> 00:47:01.789 one of our teams or some organization we're working 00:47:01.789 --> 00:47:03.889 with because they need that data now. They don't 00:47:03.889 --> 00:47:06.820 need it in 10 months when it comes out. in publication. 00:47:07.300 --> 00:47:11.199 And some data lends itself to that and some doesn't. 00:47:11.219 --> 00:47:13.920 Awesome. So I have two questions I usually finish 00:47:13.920 --> 00:47:16.179 with. The first one is, what is your favorite 00:47:16.179 --> 00:47:18.679 exercise? Well, I have two parts to that answer. 00:47:18.920 --> 00:47:23.699 When I used to, back in another day, I used to 00:47:23.699 --> 00:47:27.260 compete in powerlifting. I competed a lot in 00:47:27.260 --> 00:47:30.380 weightlifting. I did bodybuilding. My main sport 00:47:30.380 --> 00:47:34.280 other than those was wrestling. But in powerlifting, 00:47:34.730 --> 00:47:37.469 my best lift and one I enjoyed training the most 00:47:37.469 --> 00:47:40.309 was squats. But in weightlifting, I love doing 00:47:40.309 --> 00:47:43.110 the snatch and that was so fun. And I can't say 00:47:43.110 --> 00:47:45.849 I was particularly good at it, but it was, it 00:47:45.849 --> 00:47:49.590 was just so satisfying when that bar just popped 00:47:49.590 --> 00:47:52.510 in place and you're just right in balance and 00:47:52.510 --> 00:47:55.070 you just stood up with it. It's like, that seems 00:47:55.070 --> 00:47:58.530 so easy. How come I can't do another two and 00:47:58.530 --> 00:48:01.150 a half kilos? And so I really enjoyed that. And 00:48:01.150 --> 00:48:04.730 that was a lift that I think. at least for me, 00:48:04.750 --> 00:48:07.690 was sensitive to my training fatigue because 00:48:07.690 --> 00:48:10.349 in my training log, I would be tracking my volume 00:48:10.349 --> 00:48:13.750 load. For me, I knew that a certain volume, I 00:48:13.750 --> 00:48:16.349 could only be above a certain threshold of volume 00:48:16.349 --> 00:48:18.929 load so many training sessions in a row before 00:48:18.929 --> 00:48:22.949 I had to, you know, so I knew to build in my 00:48:22.949 --> 00:48:25.670 back off sessions because I get greedy. Be going 00:48:25.670 --> 00:48:28.429 good, be going good. Let's keep it going. Ooh, 00:48:28.710 --> 00:48:31.550 I shouldn't have. And I would really notice it 00:48:31.550 --> 00:48:34.539 on the snatch and on. Those days, I could go 00:48:34.539 --> 00:48:36.539 over and squat heavy. I could go over and grind 00:48:36.539 --> 00:48:38.880 out the heavy load. But that explosiveness, well, 00:48:38.960 --> 00:48:42.539 that's the power. So was I over -trained? Yeah, 00:48:42.699 --> 00:48:46.079 but no, it wasn't over -training. I had just 00:48:46.079 --> 00:48:49.639 lost that little edge. Not overreach, but it 00:48:49.639 --> 00:48:53.199 was not good training. So there's a difference 00:48:53.199 --> 00:48:56.420 between a poor training program and over -training. 00:48:56.829 --> 00:48:58.829 You know, you may not be making progress because 00:48:58.829 --> 00:49:01.769 that's just a bad program. Or you didn't time 00:49:01.769 --> 00:49:04.849 your peak or your taper correctly. That's different 00:49:04.849 --> 00:49:08.769 from overtraining. Now my favorite lift is because 00:49:08.769 --> 00:49:11.389 I'll qualify this. I have two metal hips and 00:49:11.389 --> 00:49:15.769 I will be getting someday a metal knee. And so 00:49:15.769 --> 00:49:18.250 that changes things a little bit. So deadlifts. 00:49:18.679 --> 00:49:21.900 I find I enjoy that because you can use a load. 00:49:22.039 --> 00:49:24.719 It's so, I hate using the word functional because 00:49:24.719 --> 00:49:26.639 anything you do in the weight room should be 00:49:26.639 --> 00:49:29.019 functional. It serves a function. But it's so 00:49:29.019 --> 00:49:31.480 basic to activities of daily living, bending 00:49:31.480 --> 00:49:34.420 over, picking something up, moving things. And 00:49:34.420 --> 00:49:39.059 so doing deadlifts and sometimes partial range 00:49:39.059 --> 00:49:41.739 of motion because of limited mobility. But I 00:49:41.739 --> 00:49:44.920 do enjoy that. And so I've got a few of my favorite 00:49:44.920 --> 00:49:47.519 deadlift workouts that if I miss a training session. 00:49:48.039 --> 00:49:50.420 it's probably not those training sessions. And 00:49:50.420 --> 00:49:53.480 so we have a nice little setup here where I am. 00:49:53.619 --> 00:49:57.739 So our new consulting business is operating out 00:49:57.739 --> 00:49:59.559 of my home, but we've got a nice little training 00:49:59.559 --> 00:50:02.719 center here in a conference room. And so we can 00:50:02.719 --> 00:50:04.960 do that here. So what is your favorite lift? 00:50:06.289 --> 00:50:09.349 Ooh, Jerk. I think I struggle the most with Jerk 00:50:09.349 --> 00:50:12.030 at the moment, but this is my favorite. Yeah, 00:50:12.090 --> 00:50:14.329 very cool. All right. And the last question is 00:50:14.329 --> 00:50:17.849 where people can find you online? So you can 00:50:17.849 --> 00:50:21.969 find me on, I am on LinkedIn, Andrew Fry. Also 00:50:21.969 --> 00:50:25.010 our business, which you can get to our business 00:50:25.010 --> 00:50:27.369 website, it's called Fry Sports Performance, 00:50:27.670 --> 00:50:30.949 LLC, Limited Liability Corporation. And so my 00:50:30.949 --> 00:50:33.210 wife and I, we have a website. You can get to 00:50:33.210 --> 00:50:36.329 it through LinkedIn or you can... just go to. 00:50:36.880 --> 00:50:40.699 Fry Sports Performance. That's F -R -Y. And we 00:50:40.699 --> 00:50:43.940 have a website and kind of shows, you know, the 00:50:43.940 --> 00:50:46.059 kind of stuff we do and some of the places we're 00:50:46.059 --> 00:50:49.599 working with and what we do. And so we do collaborations 00:50:49.599 --> 00:50:53.039 with researchers and writing projects. We do 00:50:53.039 --> 00:50:56.980 curriculum evaluations. And my wife does mental 00:50:56.980 --> 00:50:59.900 skills consulting because that's her area. Do 00:50:59.900 --> 00:51:03.119 some expert witness testimony, do program evaluations 00:51:03.119 --> 00:51:05.960 for, you know, training programs, that kind of 00:51:05.960 --> 00:51:08.900 thing. And what I like about it is I'm continuing 00:51:08.900 --> 00:51:11.639 the most fun stuff that I've done my whole career. 00:51:11.760 --> 00:51:16.199 So it's like writing and analyzing data and connecting 00:51:16.199 --> 00:51:19.340 with coaches and sport organizations. And yeah, 00:51:19.440 --> 00:51:21.420 so that's how they can reach me. And my email, 00:51:21.619 --> 00:51:27.300 anyone can reach out. It's acfry142 at gmail 00:51:27.300 --> 00:51:32.360 .com. acfry142 at gmail .com. Thank you so much, 00:51:32.380 --> 00:51:34.380 Andy. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much. Take 00:51:34.380 --> 00:51:34.619 care.