Overtraining

[Justin Davis]

I know I am quoting someone, perhaps even Mr. Glassman, something to affect of "No such thing as overtraining, but under recovery". I know there was a whole CF Journal, about 18 months ago that dealt entirely with this isues. Was a very good journal in my opinion.

[Marc Moffett]

justin,

As noted above this doctrine may provide a better emphasis, but all it does is shift the question from "What is overtraining?" to "What is under recovery?" From a motivational point of view the latter question might be a better, but it doesn't in itself advance the discussion one iota.

Again, one main reason for the question concerns the relationship between health and CF. Let me put the issue this way: all of us here agree that certain sorts of segmented training (strength or endurance) may produce better results with respect to those particular activities (running marathons) but do so at the cost of undermining overall health. And none of us doubt that CF workouts do a better job at promoting overall health. But there remains one question: What sort of CF training regimen optimizes health? It would take work--a lot of it--to argue that the CF regimen that optimizes health is also the one that optimizes CF scores/times. And since I personally could care less about my CF scores unless they are correlated with increased overall health, it is a substantial question for me.

[Note, incidentally, the current thread concerning doing two WODs a day. The worry is that doing this makes for a suboptimal hormonal response. But suboptimal for what? Building muscle? Doing WODs? Or being healthy? --After all, maybe doing two WODs a day fairly frequently decreases WOD performance, but it might improve overall health (unless, of course, it bleeds into strong overtraining).]

I wouldn't worry much about it except that I have certain reservations from an evolutionary perspective that the recommended regimen is the right one.

And I want to emphasize that I am simply interested in the question, wondering if somebody has a definitive answer, not bashing anybody or anything.

[Ross Hunt]

"All of us here agree that certain sorts of segmented training (strength or endurance) may produce better results with respect to those particular activities (running marathons) but do so at the cost of undermining overall health."

I don't agree with this, at least not simply.

'Fringe sports' may incline athletes to poor choices with regard to recovery methods. For instance, superheavyweight powerlifters have to eat junk to eat enough calories to win their sport, and many, many olympic weightlifters of all weight classes at a high level supposedly use growth hormone and other 'special resoratives.' Marathoners may use their sport as an excuse to 'carb-load' on twinkies and beer for that three-mile jog the next morning.

Insofar as CrossFit is more healthy than other way of pursuing fitness, isn't is because the simultaneous pursuit of different fitness ends would discourage athletes from making these sort of choices? For instance, if an athlete was required to compete simultaneously at still rings, tumbling, the snatch, and the clean and jerk, then using 'special restoratives' might not be an option, beceause the extra muscle mass yielded by these methods would be deleterious for his gymnastics skills. Moreover, because this athlete was pursuing both avenues of fitness simultaneously, he would be less elite a weightlifter, and would accordingly have less need of 'special restoratives' to enhance his weightlifting training.

But would this weightlifter/gymnast be any likelier to live a long life than a weightlifter who follows the rules of his sport because it's the right thing to do and eats right because he wants to keep his six-pack?

[Marc Moffett]

Ross, I take it that health goals are determined by two parameters, length of life and quality of life. For most people who are reasonably fit, it is the second parameter that is most important. And for most of these people, we are not personally engaged in elite competitive sports. So our quality of life goals tend to be geared toward being able to do lots of activities with relative ease. Segmented training isn't good at doing this (and certainly not efficient at it).

That is basically what I had in mind. Does that help to make the point?

[Ross Hunt]

Marc,

That makes sense. It seems strange to me to think of quality of life as an aspect of health, though. CrossFit is towards "Elite Fitness," not health. Lots of other regimens, coupled with a reasonable diet, produce health. CrossFit, like many other regimens, shoots beyond health and aims at fitness. It aims at a kind of fitness that is much less likely than many other kinds to preclude health, but it aims nevertheless beyond health.

In other words: Health is of lower dignity than fitness. It's easy to come by and relatively hard to screw up. There are many different ideas about what it is to live well, but all of them presuppose health as a necessary but lower foundation rather than existing as parts of health.

[Garrett Smith]

Maybe we should agree on a definition of "quality of life" first before we go too far down this road. Here's what came up on a quick Google search http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7 701092&dopt=Citation:

A model of quality of life is proposed that integrates objective and subjective indicators, a broad range of life domains, and individual values. It takes account of concerns that externally derived norms should not be applied without reference to individual differences. It also allows for objective comparisons to be made between the situations of particular groups and what is normative. Considerable agreement exists that quality of life is multidimensional. Coverage may be categorised within five dimensions: physical wellbeing, material wellbeing, social wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, and development and activity. A research agenda is discussed as are the particular problems caused by difficulties in understanding and communicating.

That may have just made things harder. Oops.

Longevity (length of life) means very little without quality of life. If we could put people in beds and on tube-feeding and get them to live 130 years, would we consider that to be health--because they're living longer than the rest of us? I would unequivocally say no.

I just thought of another direction this could go--is it *really* health we are after, or is it quality of life? Then it becomes tough. I'd lean towards quality of life if I had to choose.

Some would say their "quality of life" is improved when they consume massive amounts of sugar/tobacco/caffeine etc. They feel their quality of life would suffer if they removed these items. Their health would likely improve.

Then there are those who would pursue health above all other things, at great cost to their social lives and capacity for enjoyment of the world around them. Their health may end up suffering in the end due to the profound effect that the mind has on the body (they're often stressed out about "being healthy").

I try to mix the approaches and intentions--stay as healthy as I can so that I can have as high a quality of life as I can.

[Marc Moffett]

Ross, To some extent we are talking across purposes. I think I mean by "optimal health" roughly what you mean by "elite/optimal fitness". But in both cases we can ask: Optimal with respect to what?

Also, to be cler, I didn't mean that QOL was a component of health, but rather that health is a component of one's quality of life. This is true as an independent factor ("physicall well-being" in Garrett's definition). But also as an instrumental factor in that good health/fitness supports our ability to pursue other goals/projects.

So to the extent that we are interested in health/fitness as a means to support longevity and the pusuit of our (non-sport-specific) goals, there is a question about what is the best CF regimen. What regimen does this the best? Is it the one that also happens to increase WOD times/scores or something more or less severe?

Garrett, of course, the quality of life question is an age old philosophical problem. Most philosophers today would want to qualify any claims about quality of life with idealizations about "enlightened self-interest" or "fully educated choices."

I agree with you on the balancing act: obsession over anything, including fitness, can be a very bad thing.

[Norm Rager]

Maybe I'm missing the point/question - belive me, I've tried to follow the bouncing ball...

But my .02 - This will not be as eloquent as previous posts.

We are in continuous Pursuit of all the optimimun mesurements mentioned thus far - excepting recovery. Who among us times thier recovery, let alone actively pursues it? There is plenty of great advice concerning what is needed to Opimize performance, but there is no definitive parameter...nor can there be. Once Recovery is viewed proactively and pursued in relation to our output, as we view 'fitness' or WOD's (since it is as important) the answers to these questions become rooted in subjectivity....where they belong. My WOD times are in relation to MY net result of MY effort and MY recovery (food, naps, sleep, etc.). The result (or FRAN time)is a measure of where I am in relation to where I started. I make adjustments as I see fit (reactive), and/or after consutation with those smarter than I (you all)- but I've learned from previous experiences and PURSUE (proactive)new fitness/recovery.

There are no definitive answers to ensure you arrive at Optimum - none that can't be re-written, that is.

[Chuck Pelowski]

Re: Norm's point

http://danjohn.org/bp.pdf

See pgs 37 & 38

[Marc Moffett]

Norm, I do get the subjectivity issue; as well as the fact that exercise regimens need to be individualized. But we still need to be able to talk in generalities. (The suggested three on, one off regimen is one of them.)

I also realize that I am to some extent splitting hairs. But if CF isn't about fine-tuning (even hyper fine-tuning) then I've missed something. The specific question that is most interesting to me is this. Call the 3 on, 1 off regimen the standard regimen. I will assume that the standard regimen is (generally speaking) optimal for increasing performance on WODs. Call any regimen that leads to strong overtraining (i.e., nueroendocrine breakdown) an overtraining regimen. Now, is there a regimen between the standard regimen and an overtraining regimen (or does the standard regimen already push us to the brink of strong OT)? If so, what are we to make of it?

And, again, part of the reason I am interested in this question is that the standard regimen (and even the standard regimen plus sports specific activity) doesn't seem to me to mimic the evolutionary hunter-gatherer context (relatively, but not entirely, uneducated guess). That context seems to me to be much more physiologically taxing in a number of ways. Some of these are fairly obvious. For instance, daily work is done under conditions of caloric restriction and with far greater exposure to the elements. (IF, of course, would help mimic the first of these.) But I also suspect that simple physical workload is much greater than the standard regimen provides and that the work load is broken up differently--typically more like doing some of the shorter WODs multiple times during the day plus throwing in a few max effort DLs and a lot of walking, sitting and napping in between.

But what I hear on the board is that anybody who does two WODs, much less, four or five WODs, during the day is courting disaster. I dunno, I am probably just confused.