Non-functional overreaching: How do you know if you’re doing it?

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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Jordan wrote in a post that “some people can do a lot of training that doesn’t actually contribute to their goals, which is termed ‘non functional’ overreaching."”

And in a podcast, when discussing concerns about “junk volume,” Jordan concluded with something to the effect of, “They’re wrong.” I think Jordan meant that the literature shows a positive, dose-response relationship between volume and gains in size and strength, so concerns about junk volume might merit a “citation needed” response.

How would you know if you’re doing “non-functional overreaching?”

An obvious example might be if you run a marathon every week “for GPP” but your goal is to be the strongest powerlifter you can be. In that case, the fatigue from the high volume of running would probably mask your strength and might inhibit some adaptations from your strength training.

But for a more realistic example, let’s say that after your first run of a BBM template, the fatigue feels manageable and you got decent but not great results, so you decide to do a second run by adding a set (at the same average RPE) to each exercise. It’s possible that the extra sets might result in overreaching, but I assume that the training would be “functional” if your goals are aligned with the goals of the program?

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By definition, non-functional overreaching is a short-term decrease in performance despite increased training stress, which typically resolves in a few weeks or months of either continued adaptation (on the same program) or reduced training stress to better suit the individual.

It’s pretty straightforward to track progress along with some metric of training stress. A more difficult question would be, is it non-functional overreaching due to too much training stress in total or too much training stress of the wrong kind. That would be tough to tease out save for obvious examples like what you described.

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