Musings On Burnout: July ‘23

Hi, Tom and Emma here 👋

We hope you’re having a fantastic July, and you’ve been managing to get plenty of time on the bike. Here’s the latest instalment of our In-Form Newsletter…

Musings

This month, we’re thinking about burnout…

This is quite a topical subject, as many cyclists will be entering the latter half of their competitive season, which can be a time where the accumulated mental and physical stress of training and competition can build toward the point of burnout. This can be physical or mental, or a combination of the two.

It helps to be aware of the signs of burnout, so that you can take steps to temporarily cut back on training and/or reduce other stressors in your life, before things go too far. 

Some key signs to look out for include:

• Low/irritable mood

• Lack of training motivation

• Difficulty sleeping

• Reduced libido

• Reduced or elevated heart rate, both at rest or during training

• Increased or reduced heart rate variability

• Inability to complete sessions that you can usually complete quite comfortably

• Persistent feeling of ‘heavy legs’, even after a few days of recovery

If you’re noticing two or more of these signs, taking 2-4 full days off the bike to allow both a mental and physical rest from training can be a good move.

During this period you can either rest completely, or engage in some active recovery off the bike (such as walking or swimming). This can also be a good opportunity to spend more time with friends and family, which can be compromised during the race season, and can really help with mental recovery! Focus on eating and sleeping well, and (where possible) reducing other life stressors too! 

If you don’t get any relief from the symptoms after a short training break, then it may be wise to explore other potential causes with a medical practitioner, as these symptoms might indicate an underlying condition of deficiency.  

Some tips to help avoid burn-out in the first place include:

• Allowing appropriate recovery around events. This needs to account not only for the physical fatigue from the events themselves, but also the stress from travelling and mental toll from nerves and internal/external expectations, which can all add up to a LOT of fatigue! So, if you’re racing frequently, try to keep the majority of your training between races focussed on recovery and fitness maintenance. 

• Try to plan racing and non-racing blocks. For example, repeated cycles of 4-weeks of racing, and 3-weeks of training. This allows both for a regular break from the stresses of racing, and also an opportunity to focus on building fitness between racing blocks, so that your racing blocks can just focus on recovery and maintenance, as mentioned above. 

• Consider one or more strategic training breaks. There are different ways you can approach this. One example would be to plan a 3-day break (like the one described above) 4-weeks out from any top-priority event. This acts as a nice ‘failsafe’ to help ensure you don’t need to take a training break in the 1-2 weeks leading into your event. Alternatively, you might prefer to take one or two training breaks, perhaps after a major event. These can be a little longer (e.g. 7-days), and might even include some unstructured riding. But importantly, any riding should just be ‘for fun’, and shouldn’t have any particular structure or training goals.

• Think about if/how you might be able to reduce any non-training stressors, such as poor sleep or work stress. These factors all contribute to your overall fatigue levels. 

News

• There’s a new article on the website where we review a relatively unknown concept of ‘carbohydrate unloading’ (where carbohydrate is intentionally restricted to reduce body weight for select shorter cycling disciplines). 

• We have capacity to take on new custom plan clients, so get in touch if this is of interest. With our custom plans, we’ll put together a bespoke plan to suit your individual strengths, limiters, competition demands, training availability and other life factors. We can either build a one-off plan geared towards a specific event, or we can plan recurring 6-week training blocks, where we’ll check in with you every 6-weeks to provide feedback. Our custom plans work well for athletes who don’t want day-to-day coach support, and/or those on a tighter budget. More info can be found here. 

• If you prefer to plan your own training but have a few nagging questions or want to get a second opinion on your training and future plans, then we also have some availability for consultations. More information about our consultation service is available here. 

As always, we have a wide range of training resources, which you can find under the ‘products’ and ‘resources’ tab on our website. 

That’s all for this month, so we’ll catch back up with you soon!

Tom & Emma