Coaching practices for How to Know If You Re Overtrained

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• My performance keeps sliding, my mood and sleep are tanking, and my gut reaction is to train harder to push through it
• The same weights I’ve always handled fine are suddenly feeling brutal week after week, and I keep telling myself it’s just a bad day
• No single workout feels like too much, but the weeks keep stacking
• Today’s "easy" workout on the plan is wrecking me
• I’m beat up from too many hard sets piling up, but I’m scared that if I drop the weight I’ll lose what I built

Practices that may help

1. Distinguish functional overreaching from non-functional overtraining
   Functional overreaching (planned short-term overload) leads to supercompensation; non-functional overtraining is a breakdown that can take months to reverse.
   Supercompensation
2. Use post-session RPE review to detect overreaching early
   Track the RPE drift across a training block — rising RPE at the same load is the earliest signal of overreaching.
   The RPE Scale
3. Track cumulative training stress, not just individual sessions
   A single hard session is not the risk — it is the week-over-week accumulation of stress without matching recovery.
   Supercompensation
4. Autoregulate daily training load using RPE
   If a planned moderate session feels like an 8/10 instead of the usual 6/10, your body is telling you something — adjust the session accordingly.
   The RPE Scale
5. Run a volume-reduction deload: cut sets by 40–60%, keep intensity
   Reduce training sets by roughly half while maintaining the same load and rep ranges — this dissipates fatigue without losing neural drive.
   Deload Week
6. Time your next training session to hit the supercompensation window
   The highest adaptation occurs when the next stimulus lands during the supercompensation phase — above baseline recovery, before the adaptation fades.
   Supercompensation
7. Test performance at the end of the deload to confirm supercompensation
   A PR attempt at the end of a deload week is the clearest evidence that the prior training block worked.
   Deload Week
8. Train at 40-60% of maximum — the sub-maximal effort rule
   Each GTG set should feel easy: you stop well before any form breakdown or perceived effort.
   Greasing the Groove, Made Practical
9. Manage the alarm phase — don’t abort the adaptation by resting too long
   The discomfort and fatigue after a hard session is the alarm phase of GAS — it means adaptation has been triggered, not damaged.
   Supercompensation
10. Use conversational pace to build exercise tolerance safely
    New exercisers who train entirely within conversational pace build fitness while avoiding the discouragement of early burnout.
    The Talk Test: Gauge Exercise Intensity Without a Monitor

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