Ron Lugbill Whitewater Slalom Racing Blog

overreaching

Overreaching

Overreaching is a training approach where you intentionally train excessively for a short period of time and then rest or taper to get a super-compensation and improve your performance afterwards. This is different from overtraining, where you just keep training too much over a longer period of time and your body breaks down and you have to rest for months to recover. Another way to distinguish overreaching from overtraining is that overreaching is planned for a limited period of time, whereas overtraining is not planned and lasts for a longer period of time. One week of hard training is not overtraining if you then back off, that is overreaching. But training hard for months on end, then getting sick or injured as a result is overtraining.

But in either overtraining or overreaching, there is a decrease in performance. With overreaching, you have a temporary decrease in performance, followed by a taper so that the performance increases afterwards and you reach new personal bests. Here is an article about overreaching and overtraining: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/training/overtraining-overreaching-and-all-the-rest-part-1.html/

Overreaching is not a concept for beginning or even intermediate athletes. They can make good regular progress from normal training and recovery between workouts. However, they need to be careful not to follow the same training programs that elite athletes use. It is often tempting to try to copy the best athlete in your sport. However, that athlete has built up to that level of training over a period of 10 or more years. If you don't have that kind of training time behind you and you aren't in that kind of shape, copying the training of a top elite athlete can lead to overtraining. You need to do a program that is appropriate for you at your level.

As for a specific time period to plan overtraining, I have seen plans lasting from 5 days to about 3 weeks of planned overreaching. If you do less than 5 days, it's probably not enough stress for optimal super-compensation. If you do more than 3 weeks, you risk getting into overtraining territory. And the recovery time afterwards is crucial. It should be commensurate with the overreaching phase. I have seen recovery plans varying over about the same length of time, 5 days to 3 weeks. Shorter overreaching periods probably mean shorter recovery periods and longer overreaching periods would require longer rest or recovery afterwards. The big problem most athletes have is not truly resting or tapering after the hard training. You might want to take a couple days completely off, then use a taper schedule where you do fewer workouts, take fewer runs, but maintain the intensity and have long rests between runs.

For example, one plan might be to overreach for 1 week, doing 3 workouts per day. At the end of the week, take 2 days off, then only train 3 days per week with 1/2 the volume and long rest periods for 2 weeks. At the end of the first week, you will feel slow and tired. By the end of the second rest week, you should be feeling fresh and strong and faster than ever. That is the super-compensation effect. Again, this program is designed for elite athletes, not for beginner or intermediate athletes. If you aren't racing at the national or international level, you are better off just training normally, with some training and some recovery between workouts, rather than using this type of program. And in any case, make sure you maintain good technique when using this program. It is easy to start using poor technique when you get tired. Make sure your last strokes in the workout are as perfect as your first strokes in the workout were. Here is a link to the article:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/training/overtraining-overreaching-and-all-the-rest-part-1.html/

 

shoulder injury prevention

Shoulder Injury Prevention

Shoulder injuries are common in our sport. Often these injuries are due to muscle imbalances. The muscles in the front of the shoulder become over-developed and the rotator cuff muscles in the back of the shoulder are under-developed. There should be a balance in your upper body training between pushing and pulling exercises. Excessive pushing exercise without exercising the pulling motion can create muscle imbalances that lead to injury. For example, if you do bench presses or push-ups, you should also do inverted rows or bent rows to balance the muscles.

And you should do rotator cuff exercises to work the smaller muscles around the shoulder. These are often weak in comparison to the muscles in the front part of the shoulder. Often, people have shoulders that are rounded and moved forward. This can create a situation where impingement is possible.

A board-certified orthopedist, Dr. Kirsch, has a unique approach to shoulder health. He says that we should be hanging from a bar daily to open up space in our shoulders. Our distance ancestors did this, other primates often hang from branches, etc. creating space in their shoulders. He says you can actually change the bone structure over time by hanging from a bar often. Here is a link to a video of some physical therapists talking about and demonstrating this approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmt7uSU3mmU

Dr. Kirsch also recommends 3 exercises to strengthen the rotator cuff. Front raises, with a light dumbbell or other light weight, side raises, and back raises. This works the shoulder muscles in different ranges of motion to balance the different shoulder muscles.

The bar hangs aka dead hangs are also effective in lengthening the spine. This helps the body recover, so they are good at the end of a workout. And the dead hangs are also good for developing grip strength.

Some of you have already experienced shoulder pain. Others should do these exercises as prehab, a way of preventing injury. Part of your dry land training should be prehab, to decrease the odds of injury. And your strength training program should balance the pushing and pulling exercises for your shoulder health.  Here is the link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmt7uSU3mmU