John Broz System

[Mike C]

the general population is retarded and doesn't know shit about strength training or athletics in general... how the hell would they know anything about training terminology and the physiology of adaptation/performance?

ignorance is not a good enough reason to be able to make your own definitions

I didn't make my own definition as I've already pointed out. The "overtraining syndrome" definition is the new one.

The ignorance you speak of was my answer to the original question "does overtraining exist". As it is defined traditionally (see my definition), absolutely. As defined by this "OTS" definition, I have no idea. They are two different questions.

I've trained with MANY of the top fighters in the world over the last decade plus - helping to prepare for my own competitions and theirs, and every single one of them tapers off in the weeks and days leading up to a fight. Does this have anything to with your endocrine system? Or is it to allow the body to recover more efficiently and perform at its peak? If overtraining does not exist, why aren't they training as hard as possible until the day of the fight?

Overtraining is a physical, behavioral, and emotional condition that occurs when the volume and intensity of an individual's exercise exceeds their recovery capacity. They cease making progress, and can even begin to lose strength and fitness. Overtraining is a common problem in weight training, but it can also be experienced by runners and other athletes.

Microtrauma to the muscles are created faster than the body can heal them.
Amino acids are used up faster than they are supplied in the diet. This is sometimes called "protein deficiency".
The body becomes calorie-deficient and the rate of break down of muscle tissue increases.
Levels of cortisol (the "stress" hormone) are elevated for long periods of time.
The body spends more time in a catabolic state than an anabolic state (perhaps as a result of elevated cortisol levels).
Excessive strain to the nervous system during training.

Other symptoms

Overtraining may be accompanied by one or more concomitant symptoms:

Persistent muscle soreness
Persistent fatigue
Elevated resting heart rate
Reduced heart rate variability
Increased susceptibility to infections
Increased incidence of injuries
Irritability
Depression
Mental breakdown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtraining

[stonerider]

you're using wikipedia -- this is your first problem


you're also using the definition of overtraining which is in Practical Programming, and which most intelligent coaches use


overtraining causes systemic fatigue, regression, etc -- it's chronic, as has been said NUMEROUS times

in other words, overtraining is under-recovering over a "long" period of time


when an athlete tapers before a competition, it allows all fatigue from training to dissipate and allows him to "fully" recover so he can perform at his highest level... if he continued training, he wouldn't be "overtrained", he would simply be fatigued from training and recovering from his cycle/overload, and wouldn't be able to compete fresh -- this is wholly different than beating his body up so hard and for so long that he starts breaking down


even the shit you just quoted from wikipedia agrees with what i and jamie (and whoever else) have been saying -- i guess you just don't know how to read/interpret it

[Trei]

What Jamie and Stonerider said.

Overtraining is not as common as you're making it out to be, and it's not something where you just go, "Man, I'm not recovering. I'll tone it down for a couple of days, and be okay again." It's hard to get to a point where you're legitimately overtrained, and most non-athletes probably will never feel what it's like (myself included). Most people would probably give up before they even got there. It's both physical and psychological, and wrecks your shit.

[Mike C]

I've always been told by competitors and coaches that you taper off to avoid overtraining before a fight. Every MMA coach I've worked with has used the term to mean training to a point where you don't hit your peak at the right time i.e. you've worked yourself up the hill with hard training and you start heading back down into S&C regression when fight time comes around. Another common phrase people use interchangeably is "burn yourself out".

I guess it's possible most people in the non-weightlifting world use the term "over-train" to mean "over-work" and not "overtraining syndrome" which is obviously quite different. I'm open to that.

[LimieJosh]

I've always been told by competitors and coaches that you taper off to avoid overtraining before a fight. Every MMA coach I've worked with has used the term to mean training to a point where you don't hit your peak at the right time i.e. you've worked yourself up the hill with hard training and you start heading back down into S&C regression when fight time comes around. Another common phrase people use interchangeably is "burn yourself out".

I guess it's possible everyone uses the term "over-train" to mean "over-work" and not "overtraining syndrome" which is obviously quite different. I'm open to that.

Of course you taper before a fight, just like you taper before a lifting meat, or an NFL team does little more than walk throughs on a saturday. It doesn't take much understanding of the stress/performance charts in Rip's books to understand how maximum performance can only be acheived when it's timed to coincide with complete recovery. However, to universally refer to the failure to do these things and the subpar performance that comes as a result as overtraining makes the term meaningless. I accept this may be the way you have heard it in the circles in which you move, but that in itself does not make it correct anymore than the fact many people say "supposebly" instead of "supposedly" makes them correct.

If you use the term correctly, and separate true overtrainig from the myriad of other things that will result in a failure to perform, it provides insight into what went wrong. To use examples from fighting, prior to Jeff Lacy coming to the UK to fight Joe Calzaghe there were rumours of him having to cut back his road work. His S&C coach eventually came out and said that Jeff had hit his pre weight goal weight 6 weeks early and so they had to rein him in and start a small taper in the middle of this camp to stop him burning himself out. This is a classic example of a fighter overtraining, and while it's not certain that he reached that point, he was certainly heading there. In contrast Vivian Harris was famously knocked out by and lost his title to Carlos Maussa, a fighter who is right up there with the worst fighters to hold a world title in my lifetime. What makes it a useful contrast is that the night before the fight he went to Manny Stewart (his trainer) to put him through one last workout. Manny told him no and to just go back to his room and relax. Instead he hit the Jersey Pier and ran 10 miles. The following night he was lethargic as hell and was blown away by a relative nobody. If you were to look at both fighters and figure out what they needed to do better the next time you would have to restructure the entirety of Lacy's camp whereas you'd just have to prevent Harris doing one stupid session. Lacy's was a chronic failure to recover i.e. heading towards overtraining whereas Harris' was failure to taper.

[PFerrari]

Most of the population suffers from undertraining and should not be concerned one bit with overtraining.

[Mike C]

Of course you taper before a fight, just like you taper before a lifting meat, or an NFL team does little more than walk throughs on a saturday. It doesn't take much understanding of the stress/performance charts in Rip's books to understand how maximum performance can only be acheived when it's timed to coincide with complete recovery. However, to universally refer to the failure to do these things and the subpar performance that comes as a result as overtraining makes the term meaningless. I accept this may be the way you have heard it in the circles in which you move, but that in itself does not make it correct anymore than the fact many people say "supposebly" instead of "supposedly" makes them correct.

If you use the term correctly, and separate true overtrainig from the myriad of other things that will result in a failure to perform, it provides insight into what went wrong. To use examples from fighting, prior to Jeff Lacy coming to the UK to fight Joe Calzaghe there were rumours of him having to cut back his road work. His S&C coach eventually came out and said that Jeff had hit his pre weight goal weight 6 weeks early and so they had to rein him in and start a small taper in the middle of this camp to stop him burning himself out. This is a classic example of a fighter overtraining, and while it's not certain that he reached that point, he was certainly heading there. In contrast Vivian Harris was famously knocked out by and lost his title to Carlos Maussa, a fighter who is right up there with the worst fighters to hold a world title in my lifetime. What makes it a useful contrast is that the night before the fight he went to Manny Stewart (his trainer) to put him through one last workout. Manny told him no and to just go back to his room and relax. Instead he hit the Jersey Pier and ran 10 miles. The following night he was lethargic as hell and was blown away by a relative nobody. If you were to look at both fighters and figure out what they needed to do better the next time you would have to restructure the entirety of Lacy's camp whereas you'd just have to prevent Harris doing one stupid session. Lacy's was a chronic failure to recover i.e. heading towards overtraining whereas Harris' was failure to taper.

I wouldn't agree it makes the word meaningless, but by making it more generalized it obviously becomes less specific - that's inherent in the definition. You make a good point otherwise.