# Over Training? not enough calories?



## donovantrials (Mar 28, 2009)

Hey Guys

I'm new here and looking for some tips to aid my training as I keep hitting a wall, let me explain.

I have been cutting/losing weight since October/November 08 until now, through lots of exercise and what I think is a well controlled diet. However lately every 2 weeks or so I have got serious cravings for fatty foods and eating to the point where my stomach hurts so much I cannot move. I have no idea why I get these feelings. Between October and January/February I managed to lose 10kg dropping from 90.3 Kg down to 79.6Kg I weigh myself every morning before breakfast. Since then I have been getting these cravings and feeling tiered and my weight has slowly started to increase again. This last 8 days I have also suffered from a chest infection so have been taking antibiotics, yet I have no energy to achieve anything and have spent most of the days sleeping on the sofa. When should I start training again?

I'm 23 and a Great Britain trials rider, my site www.patrickdonovan.co.uk shows more what I do, unfortunately my sport isn't big enough to get dieticians, coaches etc so it's all done on my own back. I have a pretty good knowledge of diet, physiology etc I am studying it at Loughborough Uni.

As for training at the peak I was doing 3 sessions a day, Cardio before breakfast, training on the bike in the day and weights in the evening. I have tried to cut this back a little recently. As for rest days I really struggle to find anything to do to take my mind off training. The goal of the training is to cut fat while building lean muscle, I know this is not an ideal combination but lets see.

*A typical training* week would be,

*Monday:* 7am, 40minute run, 8.30 pm weights (arms, 1 hour 30)

*Tuesday:* 7am 40 minutes swim, 1pm bike training (4-5 hours), 8.30pm weights (legs, 1 hour 30)

*Wednesday:* 1pm Bike training 6-7 hours, then gym staright after for core/ab work, 1 hour 30

*Thursday:* 7am 40 minute run, 8.30pm weights (arms, 1 hour 30)

*Friday:* 7am 40 minute run, 1pm bike session (4-5 hours), 8.30 pm weights (legs, 1 hour 30)

*Saturday:* 7am 40 minute swim, 6pm weights (abs/core, 1 hour 30)

*Sunday:* 9am bike session 6-7 hours, 6pm weights (arms, 1 hour 30)

Saturday is my attempted rest day but if I try and do nothing I just eat.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o> </o>

As for diet I like to think I've got it pretty sorted but maybe it is lacking calories or supplements the main thing I have been reading up on is Iron deficiency and have been toying with the idea of getting some.

*Typical Diet:<o></o>*

*6.30 am:* Thermabol, Protein Shake with skimmed milk. An orange, vitamin c tablet, HMB tablet.

*7.40 am:* 60g oats with raisins, 1 whole egg and 3 egg whites scrambled, apple.

*10.40am:* 170g fat free yogurt with 200g tinned fruit, peaches or pineapple.

*1 pm:* 130g of fish or chicken breast or steak(rarely), 50g wholegrain rice, 200g chopped frozen vegetables. Thermabol. Piece of fruit.

*5.30/6pm:* Salad, lettuce, red peppers, red onion, spring onion, half a small avocado, 1 tomato, 1 tin of tuna, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Piece of fruit after.

*8pm:* pre training, PHD synergy protein shake, (similar to maximuscle cyclone) made with skimmed milk. Thermabol, HMB

*10pm:* post training shake Phd synergy, HMB.

*10.30pm:* 125g Quark.

*11pm:* ZMA capsules

It changes ever so slightly day to day depending on times of training sessions etc. I'm wondering if there is enough calories and also whether there is too much salt. There's also a lack of red meat I can only have steak maybe once a week so maybe the iron supplement would be good?

Any help would be great, what to do on days off to rest, how to stay focused, how to cut my number of training sessions down? My Goal is to win a competition in Spain on the 2-4th May I have 2 competitions in this country the 2 weekends before that to prepare, so maybe some kind of program for the next 5 weeks?


----------



## TH0R (Aug 15, 2007)

TBH mate, your body is craving a rest, imo your suffering from exhaustion


----------



## higgz123 (Jan 3, 2009)

u need at least 2 rest days without doing anything!


----------



## heavyweight (Jan 26, 2009)

I was cycle courier in London City last year. I was hitting 40 miles a day on average! Yeah that is a lot right! So my advice would be to eat as much as u can.. seriously thats what i would say! Cos i wasnt eating enough and my legs got a bit too thin, they were in very good shape but i think there was defo a bit of muscle wastage, up your calories:thumb:


----------



## donovantrials (Mar 28, 2009)

thats some useful advice, any ideas what to do on my days off? it just bugs me like i should be doing something and how should I up my calories? more carbs or more protein?


----------



## TH0R (Aug 15, 2007)

donovantrials said:


> thats some useful advice, any ideas what to do on my days off? it just bugs me like i should be doing something and how should I up my calories? more carbs or more protein?


Mate, do a little research on the site, hundreds of diets on here if you look

The main problem you have is not diet imo, its the intensity of what your doing

Its made me tired just reading it


----------



## willsey4 (Apr 21, 2008)

Am I right in saying that your weight workouts are each 1.5 hours? If so thats way too much. Your body needs more rest and you could be over training.


----------



## uknick (Mar 16, 2009)

Sorry to state the bleeding obvious - but it looks like you are over-training and under eating!

You are actually training a bit like an Ironman triathlete who is looking to compete for 8-12 hours in Kona! (and I bet they don't do as much lifting as you do)

Can I ask why you want to do two cardio sessions a day? I suffer a bit of the same disease and have settled on the following as a compromise:

4 sessions of lifting

4 sessions of cardio

2-3 days of rest - so 3-4 double training days.

The cardio is made up of swimming with a swimming club 2 x 90min sessions (3-4km) one 60min exercise bike and either a run, row or circuits as the forth sessions. I might add one or drop one session depending on how the week pans out.

Anyway - the issue I have is that this might well still be too much cardio if the objective is to bulk up a bit - so to counter this threat you need to feed your body.

I have just started to count calories/protein/carbs/fat and I mean literally everything I eat. And you would be amazed how much you have to eat to get enough calories if you are eating whole foods and not junk! It is too early for me to say with certainty - but I felt that 3.5-4,000 calories is about what I need on double training days and 3-3.5k on rest days. The breakdown of these calories to protein/carbs/fat is flexible but if muscle gain is the key then 1.5-5g per pound of body weight is a good measure and if not then about 1g per lb. As you do loads of cardio you need lots of carbs more then protein maybe 400g+ and fat around 100g. Both carbs and fat could increase further if you continue with the excessive exercise levels&#8230;

My guess is that you have an issue with your weight and you see a virtue in being light - but you want to be defined/lean as well? I understand this completely, as this is the mindset of an endurance animal&#8230; BUT IMHO you need to fight this and accept that weight gain is not necessarily a bad thing. The good news is that if you are training right your body will use extra calories positively - there will be a virtuous circle.

Yesterday, I ate the most food (in volume) that I have ever probably eaten - all good stuff (and counted meticulously) it was a struggle and I actually failed to get to my protein target - BUT what I did find was that when I hit the pool this morning at 6am (ouch) I was hitting PB's in the session - once I had woken up that is.

So - for what it's worth my suggestion would be to roughly halve your training, double your food intake and count your intake to get a handle of what you actually need to eat to get what you need in terms of physical development. Please bear in mind that this is just my observations - I am a very experienced endurance athlete, but a rank beginner in terms of BB. Hopefully my limited experienced and recent observations might help a little? Cheers and good luck. Nick


----------



## donovantrials (Mar 28, 2009)

Thats some great advice guys, thanks for all your help.

I'm 9 days into rest now, still not feeling great, but I had my bloods done today.

How can I calculate how many calories I need?

I'm thinking of changing my lifting as well, i've been doing 12-15 reps for 3 sets, i'm thinking of knocking it down to 6 reps but how many sets should i be doing? this is with a heavier weight.


----------



## solomonr (Jan 3, 2009)

Definitely over training IMO, training arms 3 times a week?

Possibly look into doing some more compound and olympic style lifts, i believe these would help greatly with your trials riding and general strength (i ridden BMX for 5 years and had a number of friends who ridden trials)

Explosiveness from deadlifts, squats, cleans etc would suit you i think.

The rest will do you good, i always find cheat meals give me that extra carb boost in the gym the next day.


----------



## donovantrials (Mar 28, 2009)

kool, I don't mean to sound nieve but what is a cheat meal, and what resp,sets and intensity would you recomend for those sorts of lifts?


----------



## solomonr (Jan 3, 2009)

By a cheat meal i was just on about:

"However lately every 2 weeks or so I have got serious cravings for fatty foods and eating to the point where my stomach hurts so much I cannot move"

This is just natural, you will get fed up of eating clean all the time so once a week (or personal preference) award yourself by having a nice fat 'cheat' meal. Load up on carbs and eat whatever you want and your motivation should improve, you can always say oh its only another few days til cheat day etc...

For the exercises you should be lifting with maximum intensity, possibly drop down to 8-10 reps 3 sets each or something like that, it would be a *very* good idea to get someone to show you how to clean properly as technique is everything :thumbup1:


----------



## Joshua (Aug 21, 2008)

There are some great bits of advice already in this thread which I totally agree with.

Respiratory infections are quite common in overtraining from aerobic exercise. There are a variety of factors in this. Risk can be reduced by increasing dietary antioxidant intake pre exercise. Whilst there are arguments that consuming dietary antioxidents preworkout can inhibit the adaptation of the body's own endogenous antioxidant systems, when ROS loading frequently exceeds the total capacity, the body takes a hit. There is substantial evidence supporting this (in trained cyclists and in soldiers).

Risk can also be reduced by ensuring that there is sufficient dietary glucose, especially around your workout. Consuming a carb drink during and post workout can help. This is even more important if doing exhaustive aerobic exercise early in the morning eg(6am to 9am). Substantial evidence supports this (in elite level cyclists, swimmers).

Once these have been taken care of, you may like to checkout beta glucan and glutamine which may help improve immune function under these type of challenges from exercise.

Although the respiratory infection is is indicative of early stage overtraining, the ongoing lethargy suggests that you were not in the earliest stages of overtraining. Lots of sleep, eating lots of healthy food (as well as listening to your body for any unusual cravings), temporally reducing training frequency and intensity, reviewing your training periodisation and exploring other recovery modalities (hydrotherapy, massage, etc).

Donovan - How is power base doing? I use to be in towers & butler. I really miss the place.

J


----------



## Need-valid-info (Mar 29, 2009)

deffo overtraining all this cardio and endurance lowers test levels anyways and tears down ur muscle but u ar a trials rider so it must b dun. u need rest days and the cheat meal u can eat clean 6 days a week and day 7 e.g. on sunday have an all out binge just make sure tht this is ur rest day. 8-10 hours sleep a night, try to get to bed before 10 cortisol the stress hormone increases at this point. e.g. wake up and go to bed same time everyday u will have slightly more energy and dnt eat too many carbs before bed this creates insulin which supresses the release of growth hormone. make sure after any training u have sum sorta recovery drink with quick absorbin protein(whey) and instant carbs basically sugar. For instance red grape juice is ideal i get 50-60 grams protein and about 80-100g ofsugar from red grape juice after training and also glutamine before and after workouts usually i get 5-10 grams before and after thats me personally. also a casein protein shake before bed to prevent catabolism have it with milk not water the milk makes it digest even slower u are good for 5-7 easily whilst u sleep after consuming casein before bed.


----------



## uknick (Mar 16, 2009)

Need-valid-info said:


> i get 50-60 grams protein and about 80-100g ofsugar from red grape juice after training and also glutamine before and after workouts usually i get 5-10 grams before and after thats me personally. also a casein protein shake before bed to prevent catabolism have it with milk not water the milk makes it digest even slower u are good for 5-7 easily whilst u sleep after consuming casein before bed.


Do you really get this much protein from grape juice? What volume would this be? I also assume this is better than recovery drinks as it is natural? Getting 60g of protein and 100g of carbs would make it possible for me to reach my goals - which I am not getting to at the moment. Also where is the best place to buy casein? Cheers Nick


----------



## Guest (Apr 2, 2009)

You need to cycle your training in order to stop cns burn out.

Overall it has less to do with food intake and more to do with cns burn out.


----------



## Need-valid-info (Mar 29, 2009)

i meant iget the sugar from red grape juice(from tesco) and my protein is whey protein afta trainin. casein protein u can buy off of the net i would go with reflex it nearly a kg for about 22 quid but the scoopa is quite small u get 40 g protein per servin


----------



## noturbo (Oct 27, 2006)

I tried to make a slightly improved plan for your week to lessen the amount of work somewhat, it was difficult though as I didn't really want to get rid of any of the bike training obviously

*Monday:* 7am, 40minute run, 8.30 pm weights (chest+triceps+shoulders, 45 mins)

*Tuesday:* 7am 40 minutes swim, 1pm bike training (4-5 hours)

*Wednesday:* 1pm Bike training 6-7 hours, then gym staright after (back, 45 mins)

*Thursday:* 7am 20 minute run then chillout day

*Friday:* 7am 40 minute run, 1pm bike session (4-5 hours)

*Saturday:* 7am 40 minute swim, 6pm weights (Legs, 45 mins)

*Sunday:* 9am bike session 6-7 hours

You need to work more than just arms and legs etc. and no need for core/ab work either if you are doing squats and deads which this new plan would include. You also need to have a rest day in there (thursday above) I also noticed that you were doing 7+ hours somedays including cardio, bike training AND an hour and a half on weights which is WAAAAY too much, especially as it was leg day!

Some of the other guys can prob make a better job of it but thought i'd try anyway lol


----------



## donovantrials (Mar 28, 2009)

Hey Guys Thanks for all the fantastic replys, I have been working on my routine of the last few days and this is what I have come up with, serously cutting back on the cardio and adding a rest day. Let me know what you think, bearing in mind my goal is to get cut, add a bit of muscle and increase explosive power, at the same time improving my cycling performance.

I have tried to incorporate the T-nation Neanderthol man workout into my scheme.

*Saturday:* Weights (round 11/12am to allow 24 hours)

*Sunday:* Trials Training 6-7hours

*Monday:* Rest Day

*Tuesday:* Weights + HITT training on the rower at end of workout (11/12am again to allow rest before wednesday)

*Wednesday:* Trials Training 6-7 hours

*Thursday:* Weights (pm session 2/3pm)

*Friday:* AM Cardio session (run) 30 minutes, PM Trials Training 4 hours

As the Neanderthol Man workout is over 4 days, I plan to rotate my wrkouts, so I will operate the 4 workouts on a cycle over the 3 weights days. I have added a few extra lifts to the ones outlined on their site they are as follows.

*Workout 1*

*A1* Pronated Medium Grip row (Lat Bar) 6x10x40kg

*A2* Pec Stretch Performed between the sets in A1 (2minutes)

*B1* Face Pulls 3x10x17.5kg

*B2 *Decline Barbell Extensions 3x10x6Kg

B1 and B2 to be a superset with 60 seconds rest after each set

*C1 *Rear Delt Fly 3x10x8kg

*C2* Lower Pulley external Rotations 3x12x5Kg

*C3* Dip Shrugs 3x15

Again a superset

*D* High to Low cable wood chops 3sets per side x 10

15 second rest between each side

*E* Bicep curls only down to 90 degrees supported on a bench 5x5x24kg

*F* Cable cross overs 5x5x21kg

*Workout 2*

*A* Supine Bridges 3x15

*B1* Snatch Grip Deadlifts 6x6

*B2* Illio Tibial band stretch (2minutes)

*C* Barbell Step-ups 4sets each leg X 10

*D1* Dead Bug Twists 3x15

*D2* Side Hip Thrusts 3x15

*E* Squats 5x6

*F1* Swiss ball lifts 3x12

*F2 *Weighted crunches 3x12x15kg

*F3 *medicine ball switches 3x15 each side

superset all of F

*HITT *Using a rowing machine 5 minute warm up, 30 seconds flat out 1 minute rest x10 then 5 minute cool down.

*Workout 3*

*A1* Decline Close Grip bench 6x 3,2,1,3,2,1

*A2* Chest Supported T-Bar Row 6x6

*A3*

*B1* Single Arm low Pulley cable row to abdomen 3 sets per side x 10

*B2* Pec Stretch

*C1* Dumbell External Rotations, elbow supported at 90 degrees 3x10

*C2* One arm prone lower tapezius raise 3x10

*D* Saxon Side Bends 4x6

*E *Dumbell Press 5x5

*F *Full range Bicep curls 5x5x20 kg

*Workout 4*

*A1* Heels Elevated Rock Bottom Front Squats 6x 3,2,1 3,2,1

*A2 *Warrior Lunge stretch

*B1* Walking lunges 3x8 per leg

*B2* Illiotibial band stretch

*C* Dumbell ISO Split squat 60 seconds per leg, one rep

*D1* Pull throughs 4x12

*D2* Pull Down Abs 4x12

*E1* Dumbell Dorsi Flexion 2x20

*E2 *Calf stretch

So what do you guys think to this workout, too much, not enough? Can you see anywhere it is possible to add another small session on the bike prehaps? I like to do relatively little on Saturday if possible as I compete on a sunday, so i'm either travelling or trying to rest.

Thanks Again


----------



## Need-valid-info (Mar 29, 2009)

personally i would do weights twice a week perhaps 2 full body workouts 1 exercise per bodypart. So ur going to the gym to help improve your strength in relation to your biking so if there are any exercises you can do in the gym which mimic certain movement whilst biking do them of course. i mean im guessing you dnt need all raw strenth but involving squats, deadlifts, rows, benches etc... to stimulate your core and strengthen it are always wise when participating in any strength programme. obv if u are sore dont be tempted to exercise in the gym u will overtrain eventually.


----------

