- You go out for a single session and do loads more then normal - and then feel bad the next day.
- It creeps up slowly over a week or two.
The first way is usually related to intense training sessions, and because its come on via a one-off you can usually recover fairly quickly.
The second way can take longer to recover from - its taken days or weeks to slowly over-stress you and the recovery will take a similar length of time.
Over training can also be hard to spot. For me tiredness that doesn't go away with a good nights sleep, irritability and unexplained depression are the signs.
Irritability is an interesting one. When you feel irritated its easy to not regard this as overtraining.
A classic for me is whilst I am driving my car I find that everyone else is getting in my way or being impolite. When I notice myself feeling this way I have to say "Ah, it not that driving standards have suddenly dropped just for today. Its that I have no patience because I'm over trained".
Even something as simple as this can make me re-think my training.