Runners’ Blog

Most of you know the 10% rule to training. Not to increase your weekly mileage more than 10% or you could be risking injury. Okay, but what about overtraining? Isn’t overtraining increasing mileage too quickly? No, actually they are quite different. The injuries incurred by too much too quickly are novice mistakes or impatience of runners. Overtraining is typically seen in seasoned athletes who tend to try to maintain intensity of training without periods of rest during the year. Chronic fatigue, decrease in performance, changes in heart rate and sleep are indications of overtraining. If you suspect that you be overtrained, monitor your resting heart rate for 7 days. Usually in the morning, before rising, 15sec x 4. If there has been a 5% change, cut your mileage in half and if the change has been 10%, take off for one week. A 3 week increase and a 1 week decrease by 50% cycle in your running program is the best way to avoid overtraining.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Advice, RunTips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.