Let’s quite simply define overtraining as training to the point where your body is not able to recover from the effort. Doing too much. Not allowing your body to repair the damage you’ve caused.
Whoa whoa whoa! How can this be a good thing? It’s common knowledge among anyone with even a basic knowledge of physiology that the stimulus is the exercise, but the real improvement comes from the time spent resting. So why is overtraining a good thing?
Overtraining is more than just a good thing – it is a necessary thing (at least if you want to reach the upper limits of your performance). Everyone has a different ‘threshold’ at which the exercise stimulus:recovery ratio shifts from being positive (ie: recovery > stimulus) to negative (recovery < stimulus). The closer you can get to recovery = stimulus, the closer you are to maximising what you, individually, are capable of. As much as we can base this training threshold on empirical data and the performance of others, the only way we can truly determine our threshold is by reaching it. The only way to reach it is by overtraining.
Overtraining is a tool. It is a tool to determine how hard we can push before we’re overdoing it. Overtraining is not a tool to get fitter (directly). It is a tool to find out how hard we can work before we stop getting fitter. Once we work this out, once we find the line, we can sit comfortably (sort of) below it, and rest assured that we are doing as much work as we can healthily do.
I am not condoning overtraining as a long term training pursuit. That would be stupid. I am saying though that it is a vital method of working out how hard you can work to ensure you taking up every millimetre of your training potential.
