Am I overtraining?

Hey all. I need some advice. I'm 48, and in good overall shape. At the beginning of 2023, I decided to 'up' my workout/training program in order to try to break through a current climbing plateau. (I'm a V5/6 & 12a gym climber hoping to advance to V7 & 12b by the end of 2023.)  A bit of background... last year in 2022, I was working out 2x per week... pretty low key. About 20 mins of strength training (bench press, lower body stuff, shoulder stuff).  Nothing particularly climbing-related. It was more about just trying to stay relatively strong/fit as I move into my 50s.  I was climbing 3x a week. And I was doing occasional hangboarding.  So for my new 2023 program, I added some more climbing specific training to my workout -- pullups, lock offs, pinches, core, more shoulders, and wrist exercises. I was doing this Tues/Thurs/Sat every week throughout January. And I was climbing in the gym on Mon/Wed/Fri, a split of gym sport/bouldering. And at the end of the sessions I was doing repeaters until exhaustion. So... last week I just ran out of energy. I couldn't finish my Thursday workout, and when I went to the gym on Friday to climb, I just didn't have the energy to pull up on V3's, so I went home pretty demoralized. (Sidenote: I'm eating well, plenty of protein,etc) So my question is -- am I overdoing it? Or is this fatigue par for the course after 1 month of a new training program?  Thanks for your thoughts!

6 days a week is pretty heavy duty in general.

Also, on (let’s say) a three month schedule, when was your last full week of rest? You might come back stronger with a nice recovery/rest week. 

Let's make this n of 2.  I'm almost identical to your specs.  I'm 47 and in decent shape, have been climbing for about 20 years, but never with any serious focus on training or gaining performance. Just climbing for fun, about once a week in the gym and then a few outdoor trips each year, whatever life allows. I've plateaued at about the same gym grades as you, and as I get dangerously close to my 50's I decided to commit to a solid year of real training, to see where it takes me.  

I've been roughly following the non-linear model laid out in Bechtel's "logical progression" e-book.  Sounds similar to what you've been doing, but possibly a bit more structured.  I started this on Jan-1 and I should also add that I've been dieting this entire time (lost about 5 lbs) so I would expect the toll on my body is harder than if I had been eating normally.  I was working out almost every day and then hit I a wall about 3 weeks in. Woke up one day and was just exhausted out of my mind, and felt like I can't do this anymore.  My body just wasn't used to the sudden increase in volume and intensity, but after 3 days of rest and some good sleep, I got back on the train and I've been going steady since then, with no issues.  

Don't read too much into it, rest a couple days, and get back at it.  At our age, I would guess that 6 days/week is too much, but it depends how hard you are hitting in during these workout sessions.  If you are training effectively/efficiently, you should need more rest - maybe aim for 3-4 days a week and hit it harder than what you've been doing.  I have settled on a 3-4 day/week schedule and it's working well now.  

Eric, I'm in like EXACTLY the same spot as you: 46yo V5/6, 12a outdoor climber, recently experimenting with intentional over-training. But here's an important difference: I'm taking Thurs/Fri almost completely off to prioritize Saturday sending. So here's the cycle: Saturday - (try to) climb hard; Sunday - some sort of cardio/strength plus repeater/pull-ups burnout in the evening; Monday - same as Sunday; Tuesday - struggle to boulder outside; Wednesday - kill 3 hrs during girl-child's practice by climbing/training inside; Thursday - almost nothing, maybe jog the dogs, band exercises and stretch; Friday - same as Thursday. I'm trying to be really intentional about band exercises, reverse wrist curls and stretching to avoid getting all sort of old-person joint and tissue issues. Over-training EVERY day seems unsustainable. A cycle of over-training with intentional rest *might* work? I'll let you know in a couple months...

Edit: n=3 now. Eric, Jason, this is going to be awesome.

I’m about 3 months in on a similar routine. Weeks 5-8 were a struggle. I felt like I just couldn’t recover. A few days off and just pushing through got me to the other side. Throwing a really easy week into the mix every so often helps your body recover.

Edit- I’m also in my 40s

Definitely listen to your body, pushing through can easily lead to injury, and that will really set you back. fatigue can pop up for a lot of reasons, but if you haven’t had  extra stress or poorer sleep/nutrition than usual or been sick or something, you are probably going too hard.

Sounds like you (op) need to tweak your work/rest ratio. 6 days on is a lot, and always finishing with repeaters to exhaustion strikes me as a recipe for digging yourself into a hole faster than you can recover out of it.

I would drop down to 5 days on and/or add an occasional deload week every 4th to 6th week and maybe cut back on the end of session repeaters to every other session.

Every training program I have ever followed has deload weeks. Usually once every month. With stern entreaties to freaking TAKE that reload week, even if you are feeling strong at the end of the 3 weeks of progressing.

I can tell you from personal experience that if you don’t take that deload time, you’ll be forced to take it, in a little bit, when your hit the wall. Better to take it before hitting the wall.

In terms of structuring your workout schedule, the things you are doing right now leave you no time for recovery. Is there any chance you could go your strength conditioning non-climbing exercises right after your climbing session, so you can then have ~48  hrs of recovery? At the very least, if you climb in the evening, do your SST the next morning, so you’d have at least ~36 hrs of recovery.

You also don’t need to both introduce the many additional exercises, AND up the frequency to 3x per week. 2x a week is ok for SST. 

6 days a week is definitely overtraining if you are doing much more than cardio.  if you kept at this rate for very long your performance is going to start going down hill.  and if you keep at it after your performance is going down hill you are going to start racking up injuries.  probably your elbows first and then your shoulders.

I am not a climbing coach or personal trainer, but I'll give my (possibly uniformed) opinion. It's difficult to judge what a proper training schedule/volume is specifically for you based on what other people experience. The most important thing is to be conscious of your own progress and energy levels and see whether you need to make adjustments to your program up or down. I imagine a good coach will be able to help tailor a volume that is appropriate to you.

Speaking as a 46 year old, your workout schedule does seem pretty high volume, in fact I got tired just reading it. That doesn't necessarily mean it is inappropriate for everyone, some people may be able to handle that. However, your own description of your crash does seem to indicate that you may be overtrained. Some adjustments you could make: 

• Taking a deload/rest period
• Building more rest days into your programming
• Reducing the volume or intensity of the workouts themselves. One suggestion is to first assess what your relative weaknesses are vs. your desired goals, so that you know what to target (e.g. do you need more upper body power? Top end finger strength? Power endurance?). This will allow you tailor your training for a more specific goal, and possibly reducing or eliminating things that don't service that goal. Even if you want general climbing strength gains, you should still have specific goals for individual workouts. For example, one climbing day might be a power session spent board climbing. Another day might be low intensity volume through repeaters. Trying to workout everything all the time (e.g. trying to squeeze in climbing and hangboard repeaters in the same session) could be counter productive. For the supplemental exercises (pullups, lockoffs, core, etc.), the same pre-assessment of relative strengths and weaknesses can tell you where you need to put in more time on certain exercise and cut back on others.

You may even need to adjust your daily goals based off of how you might feel that day. For example, if a power workout is on the schedule, and you start it but just feel like the power isn't there that session, then you should not sacrifice the quality of the workout by trying to push through. Instead maybe switch to something of lower intensity that day.

The last thing I try to remind myself is that increasing strength has to be seen as a long term process, with slow but methodical (and seemingly miniscule) gains in strength. Young people in their teens and 20s can have quick gains with high volume training, but at our age, you need to balance training with fatigue and injury risk. The quickest way to not get stronger is to get overtrained or injured.

I don't have to read your post (though I did) to know that the answer is almost definitely YES. Take 3 days off completely and see how you feel. 

Consider doing more on fewer days. Climbing training is mostly strength and that requires at least a full rest day between sessions to see gains for the average person, especially older. 

Also, consider that strength is just one aspect and that working on skills and tactics may yield more improvements.

Garth Sundem wrote:

Eric, I'm in like EXACTLY the same spot as you: 46yo V5/6, 12a outdoor climber, recently experimenting with intentional over-training. But here's an important difference: I'm taking Thurs/Fri almost completely off to prioritize Saturday sending. So here's the cycle: Saturday - (try to) climb hard; Sunday - some sort of cardio/strength plus repeater/pull-ups burnout in the evening; Monday - same as Sunday; Tuesday - struggle to boulder outside; Wednesday - kill 3 hrs during girl-child's practice by climbing/training inside; Thursday - almost nothing, maybe jog the dogs, band exercises and stretch; Friday - same as Thursday. I'm trying to be really intentional about band exercises, reverse wrist curls and stretching to avoid getting all sort of old-person joint and tissue issues. Over-training EVERY day seems unsustainable. A cycle of over-training with intentional rest *might* work? I'll let you know in a couple months...

Edit: n=3 now. Eric, Jason, this is going to be awesome.

Will be fun to follow each other's progress over the next year or so..  I wish I could get outside more, but my daily schedule and location make that difficult.  I'll post to this thread periodically, whenever I achieve something outside or make a breakthrough indoors or on a general strength assessment.

I'm going into this without a firm idea of what I want to accomplish.  If I had to name a goal, I'd say that I want to climb bolted 12's outside, and some hard 10's and maybe 11's on gear.  That's about a full number grade harder than what I've managed to do without any training or focus, through my late 30's into my 40's.  Maybe it just takes some projecting, as I tend to be more of an onsight or bust type climber?  I rarely ever go back and revisit routes.  In the gym, the differential between my OS-RP grade is about 3 letter grades, and I can flash some V4's and some V5's shut me down.  My outdoor bouldering is awful, but I never practice it.  Outside, I've gotten a handful of 11's OS and I suspect I'd be getting easy 12's if I actually worked them.

I'm taking the Bechtel-inspired approach..  I just used a kilter board for the first time and I can see how that will be an amazing training tool.  My weekly schedule will look something like this..

 Monday: kilter board or limit boulder problems at the gym, working super hard for about 60-90 minutes on problems right at and mostly beyond my limit.  The goal is skill acquisition (I suck at steep overhanging moves), developing core/body tension, and learning how to try hard on limit moves, what I would call the boulderer's mindset (I've never bouldered much at all).

Tuesday: Rest.  If I did it right on Monday, I will feel too worked to even think about training.

Wednesday: ARC on my home wall (2 x 30 minute sessions is the norm), some light campus work to build coordination and gain power endurance.  Nothing too fingery or intense, though.  The goal is to build endurance and aerobic conditioning.  

Thursday: Social gym night - this is with friends and it's fun, so I don't want to put pressure on myself to do anything in particular.  We usually lead some stuff that is hard and then pile some junk volume onto that, until it's time for beers and wings. 

Friday: rest

Saturday: Strength training.  Barbell exercises, some bodyweight stuff for general strength and fitness, and then hangboard for fingers.  Right now I'm being pretty loosey goosey, but I will be starting a proper HB progression with weights in a couple weeks, and probably run cycles that last about 4 weeks with deload/rest periods in between.  In the past when I've done that, I've seen some significant gains doing 2/week HB workouts for about a month, where I usually plateau and need to reset.

Sunday: rest

So that's 3 real training days and 1 fun day, with sporadic weekends outside. 

Bonus: have either of you guys done the strength assessment and compared your numbers to the data you can find online?  I just did this and my numbers match what their data would predict fairly well:  https://www.powercompanyclimbing.com/blog/metrics-for-climbers

Damn there's a bunch of us around the same age and same target goal. You guys want to do a spring meet up in Joes Valley? OMS (old man strength) club!

Eric Metzgar wrote:

Hey all. I need some advice. I'm 48, and in good overall shape. At the beginning of 2023, I decided to 'up' my workout/training program in order to try to break through a current climbing plateau. (I'm a V5/6 & 12a gym climber hoping to advance to V7 & 12b by the end of 2023.)  A bit of background... last year in 2022, I was working out 2x per week... pretty low key. About 20 mins of strength training (bench press, lower body stuff, shoulder stuff).  Nothing particularly climbing-related. It was more about just trying to stay relatively strong/fit as I move into my 50s.  I was climbing 3x a week. And I was doing occasional hangboarding.  So for my new 2023 program, I added some more climbing specific training to my workout -- pullups, lock offs, pinches, core, more shoulders, and wrist exercises. I was doing this Tues/Thurs/Sat every week throughout January. And I was climbing in the gym on Mon/Wed/Fri, a split of gym sport/bouldering. And at the end of the sessions I was doing repeaters until exhaustion. So... last week I just ran out of energy. I couldn't finish my Thursday workout, and when I went to the gym on Friday to climb, I just didn't have the energy to pull up on V3's, so I went home pretty demoralized. (Sidenote: I'm eating well, plenty of protein,etc) So my question is -- am I overdoing it? Or is this fatigue par for the course after 1 month of a new training program?  Thanks for your thoughts!

If you’re not injured, you’re not overtraining. You had one bad day, stay the course for best results, the body will adapt.

Pretty similar as well to everyone. Early 40’s. I definitely have noticed more need for rest in the past few years. I take way more rest days and still every 3-4 weeks will feel drained and have to take longer off. I do 3-4 sessions each round. (Like Jason’s I follow the Bechtel model). I don’t use weeks because I can’t do that much in a week because of recovery and life commitments. Sometimes a round is 7 days, but usually more like 8-10 days. After 3 rounds of my current cycle I took 3 full rest days and went to do session 1 of round 4 (limit session on the moon board) and felt terrible. I rested for full week and started round 4 over. I am on my 3rd session of it and all 3 sessions have been awesome. I personally would take a week off and see how it goes when you go back to it.