The Impact of Overtraining on the Body
One of my all time favorite activities is hiking, however with over 6,000 miles under my feet I have learned the hard way that doing the same activity over and over for years without resting can result in overuse injuries and strains. In 2023, after finishing the White Mountain Guide, I was more than burnt out. While my fitness watch praised me for how much activity I was doing, and I could eat anything I wanted without worrying about gaining weight, there were some major red flags that I was overtraining.
The Impact of Overtraining on the Body
Spending so much time climbing and descending steep terrain for years in a row had wreaked havoc on my knees. Regardless of whether or not I was using trekking poles to alleviate some of the strain I couldn’t bend without cringing. Stairs became the enemy, both going up them and going down them, and I knew that this wasn’t normal. I knew I had potentially damaged my knees and that the best thing to do was to stop hiking so much for a while. For over four months I have downgraded how much hiking I do from three to five days a week to less than one day a week. For months my knees still screamed at me on stairs or bending down, but eventually the pain began to decrease. I was experiencing an overuse injury and inflammation in both my knees from the over 600,000’ of climbing and descending I’d done during the White Mountain Guide.
Along with my knees screaming at me, I had experienced sprained ankles twice during the sixteen months working on the guide. I took all of three days off of hiking for one sprain and no time off for the other. My ankles were swollen and bruised, but I could put weight on them with some added support so I kept right on hiking. Not allowing my ankles the time they needed to heal meant that they were very sensitive and easily irritated by any sort of ankle mobility. I was cautious about any activity that involved a lot of ankle movement (specifically different yoga poses) and had to modify how I moved my body for months after finishing the guidebook (which was over 16 months since my first ankle sprain). Again, the four months that I spent doing minimal hiking allowed my ankles to heal.
My overall wellbeing had begun to suffer from hiking so much. By the time I was entering month fourteen of the guidebook, every day was a struggle. One would assume that after hiking that much my body would be a machine, plowing up and down the mountains like they were ant hills. Nothing could be further from reality. Because my body was starting to break down and I wasn’t resting enough between hikes there was no time for my body to recover. Hikes that should’ve been a breeze were struggles. It got to the point where my body started to shut down. For ten days in a row I shut off my alarm in my sleep and didn’t hike. My watch told me I was “strained” and that I needed to rest. My recovery time was always 72 hours after every activity but none of that mattered if I could just get in one more mile. I was chasing the last few weeks of fall and had to keep going.
Overtraining is a very real thing. I berated my body for not being able to handle what I was asking of it, for shutting off my alarm day after day, and I compared myself to other hikers on a consistent and regular basis. How come after spending so many miles hiking I wasn’t getting stronger? In fact, it felt like I was getting weaker. Rather than feeling ready to tackle the day, I was exhausted all the time and was running on fumes.
What I discovered over the course of my White Mountain Guide hiking journey was that eventually you will stop getting better or stronger, that eventually your body will start to regress because you’re overtraining and not allowing it the time it needs to recover and rebuild. You’re tearing your muscles over and over again and never giving it time to heal. Furthermore, no matter how determined you might be to keep going, eventually your body will stop responding and shut down. Shutting off my alarm in my sleep over and over again was my brain’s way of saying, “enough you need to rest.”
Things I’d Do Differently
After completing the White Mountain Guide and spending the last five months recovering and developing new workout routines there are a few major things that I’d do differently in terms of my fitness, eating, and sleeping/downtime.
First, I’d train harder and rev up to the bigger miles for a solid four to six months before starting the guidebook again. Ideally I’d hire a trainer that works with ultra athletes and build up my endurance over months before starting the guidebook. Furthermore, I’d spend a lot more time doing weight training and stretching/yoga for the months leading up to the guidebook because I know that these two activities would’ve been very beneficial to me once I started the guidebook.
Next, I would focus way more on nutrition. It’s incredibly hard to eat healthy on trail, and the more exercise you do the more your body craves carbs and sugars, but what it needs is protein. I’ve always had a really hard time eating enough protein and this is one of my greatest downfalls as an athletic person. Working with a nutritionist would be ideal, but simply trying to pay closer attention to my macronutrients and taking supplements as needed would be a more realistic change that I’d make if I could do it all over again.
Finally, I’d make major modifications to my downtime. Ideally, rather than working part time on the days I wasn’t hiking I’d spend them resting and recovering. I’d stretch more, and try to integrate some strength training into my down days to work the muscles that don’t get worked when hiking. Being able to focus on just hiking and not working would’ve been an ideal situation but it wasn’t one that I could afford to do. However, modifying how I spent my time off and really making a conscious effort to spend time off trail recovering is something that I’d do if I were to do the guidebook again.
I thought I would be in the best shape of my life after finishing the guidebook but in reality I was strained, exhausted, and overtrained. That experience taught me that eventually your body will shut down and stop responding to your efforts to keep going. It taught me the importance of rest and recovery. But most of all it taught me that doing the same activity over and over again isn’t necessarily going to make your overall strength and fitness levels higher, you have to cross-train. Which is what I am going to talk about in next week’s post, “How Cross-Training Will Make You a Stronger Hiker.”