Why am I not making progress? Why am I stagnating? Why I'm regressing?
Any athlete looking for performance has already asked these questions and there are many answers! Let's take a look at the potential causes of stagnation-regression in training and what solutions to bring.
Fatigue / overtraining
A mistake often made when you are no longer progressing, when your performance is not at the level you had hoped for, is to want to do more, to increase your training load, to train harder... However, the first cause of stagnation, or even regression, is fatigue, which can turn into overtraining syndrome if you are not aware of it early enough.
How can you be aware of this?
To compare the evolution of your performance, you need to keep a training logbook, in order to compare the evolution of training loads, but also the evolution of your fatigue. The training logbook should include notes on the sensations and the difficulty of the exercises. My athletes use a RPE questionnaire (Rate of Perceived Exertion) as well as a global questionnaire to evaluate overtraining (sleep, stress, pain...).
Solution:
In the short term, make a micro training break of 3-4 days if it is an acute fatigue or a small functional overwork, but it can go to a break of several weeks or even several months if you have reached a syndrome of overtraining leading to a regression of performance over several months, only one solution in all cases so rest, so that the body regains its homeostasis (its balance) and thus regains its ability to overcompensate after each training.
In the longer term, program a training load application schedule, not forgetting phases of rest and recovery, and monitor various markers of overtraining (mood, feelings, etc.) more precisely to prevent the disease before it happens.
Always do the same training (lack of variability in training).
In order to progress, you must respect the basic principles of training (to be found by following the link), among which we find the principle of variability of training, including the principles of progressiveness, alternating load/rest and optimal load.
What do these principles say?
To put it simply, if you do the same training every day and/or the same block of training every week/month without fundamentally varying the exercises/intensity zones worked on, the effort times, etc., your body will no longer be shocked by the training load, so the training sequence that a few years ago took you to a new level will be transformed into training that only allows you to maintain your capacities or even make you regress.
The solution?
Vary your training sessions, both in duration and intensity, and don't repeat the exact same patterns from one training cycle to the next.
Poor management of recovery
Optimizing your training is one thing, but if you neglect your recovery, your lifestyle, the quality of your sleep and your nutrition, you will find yourself irremediably limited in your performance.
The solution?
Start by paying attention to your sleep, set up a recovery routine, improve your diet and your general lifestyle.
Lack of motivation
Not feeling like giving it your all, at the slightest annoyance your training is postponed or cancelled, a lack of motivation can prevent you from progressing.
How to overcome this?
In addition to the points mentioned above (variability of training...) and the notion of pleasure which is inseparable, the solution is to set ambitious but achievable main objectives as well as secondary objectives, or even session objectives in order to remain focused and motivated during the effort.
Be careful, these objectives must be sufficiently difficult to motivate you but achievable so that you are not discouraged by failure.
Under training
In contrast to cases of overtraining, lack of intensity, no or few sessions where "I get into it", too much fear of doing too much, even if cases of under training are very rare among motivated people who run regularly, cases of under training do exist (to be differentiated from non-optimal training, which will make you progress, but not as quickly as an adapted training). Whether it is the fear of doing too much, the fear of doing high intensities or long runs, the cause can also be as mentioned above a lack of motivation.
The solution?
Do more group training with people of the same level or slightly higher than yours where the group emulation will push you to surpass yourself.
Non-specific training
You may not think of preparing for a 5000m denivelation cyclosportive (Grandfondo) in the same way as a 10km time trial. And yet many riders train in a similar way whether their objective is a hilly race or a mountainous race, yet the effort times and intensities are different. Up until now you have been making progress, but once you reach a certain level of expertise you are no longer making progress and it becomes mandatory to specifically approach the efforts in a race (see principle of specificity of training).
Reaching your maximum performance potential?
That is to say, the maximum point at which our body and mind could not bear more? It happens for professional riders or very high-level athletes to reach a certain plateau of physical performance, but there are always points to improve to progress in terms of results (or to maintain them with age), whether it is by optimizing the objectives and peaks of form, tactics, technique, preventing injuries to the maximum (prophylaxis).
But for the average person, even more so when you are not an expert in your sport*, it is always possible to progress. As you can see on the graph opposite, the margin between a person who is not trained or not trained assiduously and an expert is such that at any age it is possible to progress. Even if let's not hide it, the older you are, the slower and more difficult the progression will be. On the other hand, the small decrease in v02max is compensated at the beginning in endurance activities like cycling by a better muscular output.
Nevertheless, as you can see on the graph on the right (Maximum strength according to age), until the period of menopause in women (50-55 years) and andropause in men (60-65 years), corresponding each time with a significant decrease in hormonal production, the level of trainability and progression remains high
*Expert in his sport: In the past, it was said that it took 10,000 hours of practice before becoming an expert and being able to perform at the maximum of his potential, i.e. 10 hours/week for 10 years! Nowadays, progress in terms of monitoring athletes allows us to go much faster, but still requires a lot of time.
In conclusion, all the possibilities mentioned above are interdependent and for example a lack of variability in training can lead to overtraining and a lack of motivation, the difficulty is then to correctly identify the good cause of its ills. But the solution, in the longer term, is to opt for a training program that is thought out in the long term and adapted in the short term with a follow-up of different parameters (resting heart rate, weight, motivation, mood, record power...) and respecting the basic principles of training. For this, call on a professional!