Over training vs under training – who is the biggest villain?
Both under training and over training pose risks to our tissues. It seems very reasonable that if we go from doing next to nothing, to doing a lot, we’ll run in to trouble. The other common scenarios that we see in the clinic are people who’ve taken a week off (over Christmas perhaps) and then try to make up for it (in the new year potentially) by completing an extra long run or adding in a run where there wasn’t anything planned.
We know that consistency is the key to training – so how do we overcome these hurdles such as the scenarios above? The key word is modification.
Here is an ideal, 12-week build in to an 8km goal.
If we use the idea of acute:chronic workload ratio to inform us about tissue loading and potential tissue tolerance, we can see that both under training and then the subsequent over training poses risks.
Both scenarios put us in to the red zone, however the bottom data shows the greatest spike in the make-up week.
If we end up having a slip up in our training, all is not lost! As mentioned above it might be that we have to modify our loads for a couple of weeks to account for the changes. By applying the modification to the weeks following our under training, we are able to stay out of the “red-zone” and hopefully avoid injury.
By adding in the modifications we are still able to get a good deal of training in safely.
If you have any questions,
don’t hesitate to get in contact with one of the practitioners at the clinic!
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