Anyone experienced parasympathetic overtraining?

[MMouse]

I think his swimming was almost entirely drill work for efficiency. His long bike rides were ~ 3 hours and he used a power meter to keep his efforts exact, I know he also reced with a powe meter so he coud precisly meter his effort on the bike. Thats all I really know. His FTP was like 450 watts, he was a beast.

Iron,

When you were recovering, have you tried carbing up or eating lots of carbs? If so, what did you experience?

I just thought I asks cause someone mentioned here carb refeed and well its not exactly a carb refeed (since i still keep my protein and fat intake the same) but ive been eating alot of carbs and at the moment I can really careless if the excess calories put on fat cause I do feel good after a heavy carb meal. Im talking 100g+ per meal.

 

[ironwolf]

Iron,

When you were recovering, have you tried carbing up or eating lots of carbs? If so, what did you experience?

I just thought I asks cause someone mentioned here carb refeed and well its not exactly a carb refeed (since i still keep my protein and fat intake the same) but ive been eating alot of carbs and at the moment I can really careless if the excess calories put on fat cause I do feel good after a heavy carb meal. Im talking 100g+ per meal.

To be 100% honest, during the time that happened, there was a death in my family, my parents were in the middle of a messy divorce and a lot of other stuff was going on, I sort of just stopped training entirely for quite awhile. Between everything going on in my personal life, all my injuries, fatique and generally crippling anxiety, I needed some time to take care of other stuff rather than sports. I needed to keep my sht together for my job, family all that.

 

[standandtrade7]

I feel as if I have overtrained easier than most people. Maybe because I'm always doing shit like Muay-Thai, Wakeboarding, Longboarding, Surfing, or playing sports with my friends.

For awhile I lifted and was relatively strong but largely stagnant in certain movements.

The best thing I ever did was to train a little more minimally. I train like 7 exercises per week with the primary goal just being strength through progressive overload. Even at my stage now I still see significant strength gains on a monthly basis in each movement.

 

[senri]

Thanks for the feedback. Lesson learned, never restrict calories during high volume training.



What frustrated me was after taking 5 days off, mentally I felt ok going back, but still was physically unresponsive . Definately hard to tell if you're still in hole unless you attempt to train.

find out what your Basal metabolic rate is, then use that to figure out your TDEE. eat the calories that your TDEE is approximately at, in which case you will be eating more calories, as your hormones start to come back and your genes up regulate certain things, you will lose some weight initially. Then you can go back to eating at a smaller deficit.

You would only need to eat at your TDEE for a few days.

You need like a refeed day eating 3500kcals or something high for 2 days straight, then go at a deficit, you may try that. I don't know how many calories you ingest a week or if you do a cyclical diet or not.

 

[Turismo]

Not parasympathetic but I did experience some REALLY BAD sympathetic overtraining when I first began lifting. Bloody horrible.

 

[MMouse]

just a quick update:

I manage to take an extra week off which ended up being 2 weeks off total training. I've upped my cals, got myself out of the "dieting mindset" and starting "bulking" and little at this point do I care putting on fat if it means getting myself back to feeling good again.

I ended up doing l.i.s.s on Monday am, I felt fine and moderately sore and was worried I wasn't fully recovered, however one thing I notice that helped me out was a short intense weight training session done in pm, no more then 30 mins (in and out)

I tried doing this based on observation made from Lyle McDonald himself.

completely tangential to this discussion, here's another observation of mine, something I saw years ago in myself and a buddy of mine.

He and I were both doing a lot of road cycling and would manage to overtrain at the same time of the month. Yes, just like chicks, we were synchronized and would get tired, moody, emotional and want to eat chocolate and co**** watching movies.

Anyhow, he and I both independent observed that when we were feeling really run down from the volume of cycling we were doing, that a SHORT high-intensity weight workout would often bring us right out of it. Like instantly. To this day I don't know if it's hormonal, nervous system oriented or what. I just know that it seems to work. Of course hte key is that it was short and high intensity. Like 30 in and out.

I guess now I could actually track it with HRV or something to see what if anythings show up. Except that I got so fed up with my Suunto watch that I can't be bothered.

But I've wondered for years if this couldn't be applied practically in training but have never come up with anything useful. So you do a lot of volume for 5 or 10 days and then essentially 'peak' it with a short high intensity workout to bring you out of it.

2 cents
Lyle

I've asked the man himself but he clearly said he didn't care to look into it as long it worked. But for some reason I wonder if this helps speed recovery or get out of that parasympathetic tone sort of speak? Anyone care to explain the reasoning behind this?

Since after a days rest recovering from that short quick intense weight session my sex drive was through the roof and I felt good to go for the workout this morning.

 

[selfcritical]

Intense weight session increases sympathetic activation. That seems logical.

 

[MMouse]

Intense weight session increases sympathetic activation. That seems logical.

Thanks. Last night I did another quick short session. Today it left me feeling fresh this morning.

I'll most likely incorporate this for the next 4 weeks to try and balance things out and just get back onto general health and fitness

 

[Sano]

Thanks. Last night I did another quick short session. Today it left me feeling fresh this morning.

I'll most likely incorporate this for the next 4 weeks to try and balance things out and just get back onto general health and fitness

Good luck man!

And don't eat at a 1000+ deficit again. That is way too much, especially when training.

 

[MMouse]

Good luck man!

And don't eat at a 1000+ deficit again. That is way too much, especially when training.

For sure. Not sure about this, but I feel as if there is a natural set point (weight) the body runs at its best in terms of performance and recovery.