Topic: Training feels like crap, overtraining?

[Mike Young]

Alright so I just recovered from a cold a few weeks ago and inched back into my training. But for the past few days my performance in my parkour technical training has been declining. I used to be able to train for more than 2 hours a day, 4-5 days a week. But now I tire out easily after an hour of training and can't seem to perform well with my movements. Heck, I even feel tired after 3 running cat grabs. I also realized that I'm starting to have random bouts of headaches, especially after training. All these are making me feel crappy about my technical training.

My appetite and sleep however is still fine. My strength work isnt declining. I'm continuously adding more weight to my pistols, pullups, dips etc with no drop in performance. And I understand that its quite hard to actually overtrain especially in parkour training so I can't seem to decide if I'm really overtraining or just being a wuss. Should I continue technical training? Stick to strength work only? Or scrap both?

[Joe Brock]

Sounds like that cold might not be totally knocked out.  When you get sick, it takes some time to get back to 100%.  Take it easy, and slowly work yourself back into it.

[Gabe Arnold]

Also, what does your PK technical training look like these days? Are you resting as much between movements as you used to? Are you hitting bigger/farther things on a consistent basis?

On an anecdotal level, when I first started out jamming for several hours wasn't too hard because the stuff I was doing was lower level and there was lots of downtime. Now when I train I don't usually rest longer than 5min at a time before hitting another movement and most of those movements are 10-20% bigger than my base level would have been before. Thus, I tire a little more quickly.

[Mike Young]

Also, what does your PK technical training look like these days? Are you resting as much between movements as you used to? Are you hitting bigger/farther things on a consistent basis?

On an anecdotal level, when I first started out jamming for several hours wasn't too hard because the stuff I was doing was lower level and there was lots of downtime. Now when I train I don't usually rest longer than 5min at a time before hitting another movement and most of those movements are 10-20% bigger than my base level would have been before. Thus, I tire a little more quickly.

I'm just drilling the same things that I used to drill. No bigger movements, farther pres etc. Just some normal training to get into the groove. But even with such light intensity training I tire out easily.

I'm gonna take a few days off my training again and see how it goes.

[Joe Brock]

On another anecdotal level:

This happened to me once in kickboxing.  I got sick, took a week off, and then went back to training.  Over the next month, I simply couldn't get back into the groove.  I was winded before the first round was over in sparring, and slept around 10-12 hours a day.  I went to see a doctor about it and...

...I had pneumonia.  Apparently, I had just been trying to "push through" having a bunch of fluid in my lungs.  There are some things that you just can't "jedi" yourself out of.

[Stephen]

...I had pneumonia.

And, training while sick/getting over sickness is tough. You'll feel like you can't do a lot of the stuff you've done in the past.

Just give it time.

[Steve Low]

http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2012/01/when-to-start-working-out-after-being-sick/