[quote]maregol808 wrote:
Fat Boy 33:
When i was healty and OK even in my nightmare didnt think that cycling can ruin sexual hormones or anything else. I didnt even read any book about those problems. I just trained! But now i see that this sport is really crazy.
We have some coach in our team but he doesnt look at our training logs (training peaks) and we train with him just one or two days per week.
I will focus now on REST, i told to myself at least one month off the bike and do some weight training in the mean time. My legs have such bad lactat respons that my tempo rides feel like VO2max intervals.
Yea in future probaly i will need some training advices because obviously I am very bad self-coach.
Is it possible to get to racing/weight shape after disaster like this?
[/quote]
maregol,
First, You absolutely can return to racing shape after over-training. In fact, I’d say that pretty much everyone in the pro peloton has been there at some point or another. If they haven’t, they will be. It’s the nature of the sport. Honestly, it’s the reason that I’ve personally moved away from it. I enjoy the hell out of riding, but when I’m just not physically equipped to be really good at racing. It sounds like you do have the physical make-up to be successful, but, like most top level athletes, you need to be patient.
Developing patience means resting and letting your body recover. You don’t get stronger when you ride hard, you get stronger when you recover. If all you do is train hard and have insufficient recovery, then you will start tearing down your body (as you’ve seen). Dropping body weight is part of it, but the emotional and hormonal response is a more hidden effect. The high cortisol levels are just part of it.
It’s January. You’ve got a lot of time to salvage the season. If you’re willing to take time off the bike, then this is a good time to do it. At the end of the day, you’re going to take time off the bike. It’s just a matter of whether you do it willingly or simply because your body shuts down. Lifting weights is a good idea, but keep it simple. Don’t try to burn yourself down in the gym, just do things that will help you on the bike. Posterior chain work (the back side of the body) gets completely neglected while riding. Doing these things during a break will allow you to balance your body out to some extent. Yoga is very good for cyclists. You spend so much time in the same position that you mold to the shape. By stretching and strengthening your soft tissues you will make yourself much less prone to injury.
You’re taking the right path. You’ll recover and become stronger for it. Just follow your body. When you can start riding well again, you will feel like riding. You will want to go ride hard. You will lose some top-end strength (Lactate threshold and up). That’s OK. Once you’re rested, restart with base training and then start throwing in the high intensity work. You’ll gain it all back and more in 3 months. The trick is, you have to wait long enough that you really are recovered before jumping back in. Do it because you want to, not because you feel obligated.
What does your diet look like? I’m an advocate for most people to run on a moderate carbohydrate intake with more fat, but cyclists are not like most people. Cyclists need to be heavy on the carbohydrates with less fat. If you were trying to limit carb intake, that will make things much worse. As far as protein intake goes, I think essentially any athlete should be 20% protein as an absolute minimum.
