How breathing can help prevent overtraining
- PAIRFS
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Why monitor your breathing to avoid overtraining?
Overtraining never happens "all at once." It develops gradually from an imbalance between:
training load,
recovery,
daily stress
nutrition,
sleep.
The problem? Most classic indicators — heart rate, sensations, power — react late .
Breathing, however, changes from the first metabolic disturbances , well before fatigue becomes visible.
👉 This is one of the earliest and most reliable signals to anticipate overtraining.
1. Why does breathing change in the case of overtraining?
When your body starts to accumulate too much fatigue, several mechanisms become disrupted:
🔹 1. Increase in relative resting ventilation
You breathe faster for the same intensity, a sign of increased metabolic stress.
🔹 2. Increased sensitivity to CO₂
Your body becomes less tolerant to carbon dioxide → breathing accelerates.
🔹 3. Move VT1 and VT2 downwards
Ventilatory thresholds drop:
you're switching to carbohydrates too soon
you reach acidosis faster
🔹 4. Decreased ability to stabilize ventilation
Breathing becomes irregular, unstable, difficult to control → typical sign of profound fatigue.
2. Respiratory signs that indicate excessive fatigue
Respiratory analysis makes it possible to detect early warning signs before fatigue becomes problematic.
✔ 1. Breathing too high for an easy intensity
→ If a light jog requires abnormally high ventilation → caution.
✔ 2. VT1 which shifts from one session to another
→ You are leaving the lipid pathway too early → a sign of exhaustion.
✔ 3. Difficulty stabilizing breathing in the tempo zone
→ The buffer system becomes saturated more quickly.
✔ 4. Long time before the ventilation drops again
→ Poor metabolic recovery.
✔ 5. Early hyperventilation on the ascent
→ The body can no longer manage the acid-base balance.
These signals do not appear on heart rate or power output as early.
3. Why is heart rate not enough to detect overtraining?
The heart rate takes time to react. Two tired runners may have:
Low heart rate (parasympathetic dominant),
or high heart rate (sympathetic dominant).
It does not always allow for an accurate interpretation of fatigue.
Breathing, on the other hand:
reacts immediately
reflects the internal metabolic state,
indicates the actual energy cost,
shows if your body panics in response to CO₂.
👉 It is a more sensitive, earlier and more specific indicator.
4. How can breathing be used to prevent overtraining?
Here is a simple 4-step method:
🔸 1. Regularly test your ventilatory thresholds
Once every 2 to 3 weeks is sufficient to observe any deviations.
🔸 2. Compare breathing at usual paces
endurance outing
tempo
gradual increases
threshold session
🔸 3. Monitor the rate of respiratory recovery
After a break, if breathing slows down → fatigue.
🔸 4. Adjust the load immediately
reduce volume
remove intensity
increase sleep and nutrients
prioritize zone VT1
👉 With respiratory monitoring, fatigue can be “caught up” before it becomes dangerous.
5. How ZoneX makes it easier to detect overtraining
ZoneX measurement:
ventilation,
the production of CO₂,
ventilatory transitions,
the stability of breathing.
It automatically detects:
✔ VT1 Drop
✔ VT2 Drop
✔ Abnormal hyperventilation
✔ Metabolic drifts
✔ Ventilation instability
Then ZoneX alerts you if your respiratory profile shows:
a risk of overtraining,
poor recovery
an immediate need for adaptation of the zones.
👉 It is a prevention tool, but also an extremely powerful load management tool.
Conclusion: Breathing is an early warning sign
Before your legs give out, before your heart rate races, before your motivation drops…Your breathing warns you.
She reveals:
metabolic exhaustion,
lowering the thresholds,
the inability to buffer CO₂,
abnormal ventilation drift.
👉 Monitoring your breathing = avoiding overtraining. 👉 ZoneX makes this simple, precise and accessible to all athletes.
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