Patrick Dempsey · October 29, 2026 · 5 min read
For about two months I've been telling you to watch your own trend instead of a published number. This is the issue where I explain why, and it's the one I've been circling since the series started.
The short version: the document that defines overtraining for this entire field contains nothing about athletes our age. Not a weak finding. Not a contested one. Nothing.
Below: the three states and their timeframes, the panel's own admission about what it can't do, the size of the gap, and where that leaves us — including the part that's my reasoning rather than anybody's evidence.
