There is a training concept so fundamentally true it deserves to be a law, which is this: There is a limit to how much stress a human body can absorb. When that limit is exceeded, breakdown increases to the point of damage. There are also these corollaries: 1) The breakdown limit varies significantly between individuals. 2) The limit is not a sharply defined point.
Note that I said stress, and not training stress. I am focused here on training, but stress is stress. When we train we aim to create manageable amounts of tissue damage, which gets repaired when we rest. Our body overbuilds the repair, which makes us stronger. It is our immune system that responds to the damage by creating chemical markers that signal cell building factories to repair the damage. The same immune system that fights off viruses and other nasty stuff. Emotional stress also places demands on our immune system. Stress is stress, and when our immune system become overloaded, bad things happen.
That first corollary includes a twist. We often compare ourselves with other athletes and admire those who can train more without breaking down, but we also compete with our younger selves.
The second corollary should appear self-evident, as it applies to everything about our bodies. If we exercise lightly we do not create enough stress to trigger tissue improvement. As we increase the training load, by increasing intensity or duration, we gradually enter a dark zone in which the repairs are never complete – we are not fully recovered. Eventually we reach a point at which the inflammation is noticeably painful. This is not acute injury, like a bike crash or stepping in a rabbit hole on a run. The unchecked buildup of damage typically occurs over weeks, yet the pain comes on suddenly. We want to avoid getting anywhere near that point. The way to avoid it is to get enough recovery.
Getting the stress/recovery cycle correct is a good example of how tricky the balance thing is. Too much recovery and we lose the improvements we are working for. Too much stress and we end up with an overuse injury, and very likely lose much of what we gained. We can choose to do a little something every day, or one massive workout on the weekend that requires a week of recovery. Somewhere in there is a sweet spot. To complicate matters further, the older we are, the more recovery we require.
If you are a triathlete you are undoubtedly pressed for time. You may want your day to be all about training, but there is work time, family time, house cleaning time, marketing time. You get the idea. It is all about balance.
Even if you hit the training/recovery sweet spot and do a great job balancing your schedule, there is more that can go out of balance. As a triathlete you prefer to spend the limited training time available working in one of the sport’s three disciplines, swimming, biking, and running. Oh, and getting those balanced is another thing – I’ll skip that for now. The danger inherent in this approach is that we train primarily in the sagittal plane, which is to say our principle muscle movements are fore and aft. This results in some muscles getting strong, and others, not so much. Why is that a problem? Because when we are called upon to move in ways other than how we train, our powerful, agile muscles will overpower our weak, untrained muscles and pull joints out of alignment, straining the connecting tendons and ligaments. The places most at risk are the lower back, the knees, and the shoulders. Some would include the upper back in this list.
Like all overuse injuries, the onset will build slowly, over days or weeks. The resulting pain can start as a nagging ache, or come on all at once. In any case, the solution will take time and should include working with experts.
The best approach is to ensure these muscle imbalances never happen. How? By exercising the muscles that are not getting enough attention.
Remember what I said about the time crunched triathlete? We want to fill every available workout opportunity with a swim, bike, or run. How do we find the time to do core and flexibility work? You say you do yoga? Like, one night a week? Ok, that’s ninety minutes a week of core and flexibility, going up against maybe twelve to fifteen hours a week of sagittal plane work. Does that sound balanced to you?
The good news is we do not need to spend as much time on flexibility work as we do developing our major movers. What we should aim for is a little bit every day.
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