Are you a triathlete holding down a demanding job, juggling work, frequent travel, your sport and family commitments too? If so, here is how to know when you are doing too much and risk overtraining.
Overtime all these demands can become over-whelming and training, food choices and sleep can all get compromised, resulting in:
- Lower energy – you begin to fire on fewer cylinders, stuck in middle if not low gear. Sometimes it is not always easy to recognise this as it’s likely you are very strong mentally and push on through but this requires more and more mental energy as time goes on.
- Repeated injuries resulting in inconsistent training. Maybe you have had to downgrade to Aquabike as your joints don’t like the running any longer which makes you feel sad as you used to love running.
- Struggle to throw of colds and infections – your immune system is always ‘on edge’. Maybe a mild sore throat at the end of each day but by the morning it has gone so you push on through again.
- New gut related symptoms that you never used to have such as bloating or suspected food intolerances, never quite the time to sit down and work out what is going on or you’ve tried but got no-where..
- Late-onset hay-fever, perhaps particularly noticeable when out on the bike or post swimming. Another sign that the immune system is out of balance.
- Loss of the love for what was one of your passions. This is not good but fully reversible!
If this is you or you want to avoid it being you, here are 5 key things you need to know:
1. Understand the concept of ‘total body stress’ load and the interplay with over-training. TSS on Training Peaks does not reflect everything else that is going on in your life! The stress load our body has to balance comes from all domains in life – think of them as the three ‘P’s’: physical, psychological and physiological. So this can be pressure of deadlines, worry about family/relationships, lack of sleep and low nutrients (physiological), high environmental toxic burden (especially if high frequent flying), low-grade systemic inflammation from say food intolerances and of course, impact of physical training.
2. Impact of exercise on the immune system – there is a sweet point with exercise and the immune system – the relationship between immune function and exercise is a J shaped curve and if we aren’t careful we can end up at the wrong end even if cardiovascularly fit. Signs that this may be an issue are late onset hay-fever, frequent colds and upper respiratory tract infections. Overtraining will negatively impact the immune system and do note that ‘overtraining’ does not have to be a lot of training if your total body stress load is high.
Ref: Excess Exercise and Immunity the J Shaped Curve, Chamorra-Vina et al, 2013.
3. As we age we need more recovery so learning what is going on with our nervous system is key. There is no getting around it. Sleep needs to be prioritised and utilising the concept of ‘daytime recovery’ and strategic power napping can support (but not replace!) this. The amount of RESTORATIVE recovery we are getting is important. There are numerous ways to measure this, some better than others, but we do need to be careful to not over-monitor and not actually create more stress, I tend to use it for a short period as a learning exercise then have a break.
4. Understand your genetics. By this I mean Nutrigenomics, genetic alterations whose function can be manipulated through diet and lifestyle. I find this I can be empowering for many of my high-flying executive clients, for example, to see how they do or don’t break down cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline and dopamine and learning how this feeds into what is going on in life, how it impacts a mind that won’t switch off, how it impacts sleep and mood, our eating habits. Then, of course, with this knowledge, how to support these pathways.
5. Optimising your nutrient status – this can allow consistency across work and sport with minimal, if any, time off work and training though illness, injury and supports overall resilience. How do you do this? Simple answer is to test. I frequently see clients who ‘eat well’ but due to either mild gut issues often driven by chronic stress, digestive function is impaired and thus also absorption of nutrients. Individual genetic need also plays in here too as does ageing and the altered biochemistry that accompanies this.
So to summarise, know your body, learn how to listen to your body, know your nutrient status, know your genetics and then of course, learn what to do with all of this information :-). If you are interested in finding out more to sustain long-term energy and love for all you do, please contact Katherine on info@kchnutrtion.co.uk.
All the best
Katherine
