Assessing pre-workout fatigue
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Question: How do you determine whether you're well rested enough to succesfully complete a workout, before you even start?
This morning, I woke up and got ready for a VO2 session on the trainer (currently on the GF plan)...only to bail on it before I even started pedaling. I had the feeling that I wasn't exactly well rested for several reasons:
- Felt tired in general. I keep a log of my sleep using the Zeo Sleep Manager, and I haven't exactly been diligent in going to bed at a reasonable hour lately.
- Looked at my resting HR on my Garmin, and it was 4-5 bpm higher than usual. I suspect that the caffeine that I took earlier might be a factor though.
- Had a long two hour swim+run session the day before in the late afternoon. Probably some residual fatigue from that.
- Last bike workout was my long bike on Saturday. Basically I did half the FTP intervals before I decided to bail on those because I had a lot of difficulty hitting the right numbers. Definitely a sign of fatigue there.
I don't think I'm overtrained, but just haven't gotten enough rest lately
. I don't have a problem with backing off a bit and resting up though.
I understand that really the best way to see if you're excessively fatigued is just to do the workout and see how you perform. My intention of trying to get a good assessment of fatigue prior to a workout is to avoid the admin time and physical cost of slogging halfway through a session only to find that it's not worth it. After all, skipping a morning workout means more time for sleeping in, not digging yourself into a deeper hole of fatigue, and an early start in recovery means getting back on track faster. Just trying to be precautionary here.
Other thoughts:
- The easiest thing to ask yourself is, how tired do I feel and how motivated am I to do this workout? I find that isn't always a good gauge, as sometimes I'm well rested but just feel lazy.
- As for using the Performance Management Chart in WKO+, I think this only works well if the yellow TSB line is really really low (ex. high volume/TSS kind of stuff). Difficult to quantify fatigue with low volume, high intensity stuff (like in the OS).
Comments
Most of us are pretty much locked in to some kind of a schedule for most of a 10-11 (?) month stretch. If I head into a particular workout totally unmotivated, I tweak. I back off. Call it a recovery spin or a light jog with the dogs and music. If I get 10' into that and I got no mojo, I call it a day. I use 'unmotivated' as a cue more so than sore legs or tired. Tired is too vague for me, especially with all of the lactate we love to produce. I expect my legs to be tired and that they will usually fire up as the workout gets going. However, unmotivated is not vague, to me. That's why I use it as my dealbreaker.
Not sure how early your morning workouts are. I have learned that my 4:30 am alarm is fine for about 3 weeks, 4 at best, and then I need a week where I sleep to a more reasonable hour, 5:45 in my work world. If I don't, I tend to go 'unmotivated' real quick!
While I may _suspect_ before a workout that I don't have the mojo, I never _know_ until I actually give it a try. Last week, I started a VO2 max WKO on the trainer, but had to quite a minute into the second interval - 4 x 3' (3'). The warning signs, apart from just not feeling like I wanted to go, included a little bit of weight loss over the previous 3 days (2# total, which is a lot for me). So I bagged it, and have had supper breakthrough sessions since in all three disciplines - just from shutting down 9' of hard effort. Learning when to do that is a good skill, bugt I have not discovered how to predict in advance. there have been other days this OS with similar warning signs - fatigue, mentally down, weight loss, sleep disturbance, etc - but at least 50% of the time, I was able to hit the prescribed WKO. It's always worth a try, and never a disaster if I just shut down early on.
I think what Al is describing is where the line between being average AGer and being a more Advanced AGer is. As I currently sit in the OS Penalty Box for digging myself into a wee bit of a hole (see "Beat down with Fatigue in the OS" thread)., these are the exact warning signs that were smacking me in the face but I was so dedicated to trying to lift that FTP that I chose to ignore. And isn't it so true that its usually more than just training load, but rather lack of sleep, not enough food, life stress, that pushes us over the edge.
Agree that the first choice is always to back off the intensity for the workout but if you are not motivated to workout there could be lots of reasons for this and maybe its your mind telling you something worth listening to. Also agree, that as you get closer to your key race you have to push this red line a bit and at least try to do something. I don't think there was a single Monday Morning Run during the IM plan last season that I was super Pumped for or my legs felt Awesome after a solid weekend of riding and running...But I still got it done about 90% of the time.
Now if we could all just get 10-12 hours of sleep a night all would be well...
Great advice so far! My notes and what I do:
For me it is rare that I am unable to complete a Run or Swim workout as prescribed. Perhaps that's why I am slightly hobbled right now with Running. Bike workouts though I am not able to just muscle through it. No matter how I feel I *always* do the 1st interval and then see how I feel at the BEGINNING of the 2nd interval. If things are not right I rewrite the workout to shorten the interval (like change 2 X 20 to 4 X 10 or 8, 10, 12, 10). If that doesn't work then I reduce the intensity down to Zone 3 or lower.
I'd say by recognizing feeling fatigued and actually addressing the issue, you are smarter than 99% of us triathletes! I'm hypermotivated and have only recently begun to cut back my plan when I feel tired and under rested and guess what??? I'm setting running PR's and riding as fast as ever in my life and I'm 46 yo!
Congrats to you for recognizing the symptoms and asking the question!
As you see by the responses, there are many ways of dealing w/ the issue now that you have identified it.
Thanks for all the great input guys!
I can agree that starting a workout and seeing how you feel after you've started can tell you a lot. That's what I usually do for the bike and run. I'm just not a huge fan of dragging myself all the way to a pool, only to confirm my suspicion that I'm just too tired to have a productive session. What usually happens is that I swim a few lengths, only to walk out a few minutes later. Gets me some funny looks from the lifeguard.
Normally I am a deep sleeper, but as the time for me to get up comes closer, my body/ brain senses it and I actually wake up, sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes 2 minutes early. But I am AWAKE. I just choose to lay there, or go to the bathroom and come back to snuggle next to my DH for a few more minutes.
But if that alarm goes off and I am confused as to what/ where/ when/ why, then I know I need to sleep, not exercise.
This rarely happens in OS. But in IM training, I could almost predict which Monday or Friday mornings after big weekends or long runs, would be too hard. I would skip the swim and if I woke up with enough time to do the short run before work, then I did it, but not always. I almost never went back to make up the swim that evening.
My other trick this IM cycle during FTP work was to go for 95% on my intervals instead of 100%. I succeeded with EVERY interval once I adjusted my brain that 95% REALLY IS GOOD ENOUGH- THE COACHES SAID SO! Usually I was 96-97%, but the mental break from shooting for 100% was important.
If you are a decent swimmer, skipping the pool 1 day per week will have a minor effect, but if it lets you hit your other workouts, it is worth it.
Good luck!