Post Syndrome Training
Putting Health Before Ego
As a Sports Doc, John read an earlier draft of this article and his first comment was, ‘Which syndrome are we talking about?”
Post Viral Syndrome?
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
Overtraining Syndrome?
I’m going to leave the medical side of this discussion to John, who will discuss in a future article.
Separate from the medical side, which you should manage with your doctor, I’ve found the return-to-training side to be similar. Especially, with respect to what not-to-do and the red flags that can lead to extended recovery periods.
The purpose of this article is to help you avoid falling into chronic illness, depression and frustration.
Background Material
Our prior content:
John’s Chapter on The Tired Athlete
My Series on Adrenal Burnout and Overtraining
My Article on Dealing With Sickness
Our first line of defense is two favorite sayings of mine:
Keep Small Setbacks Small.
Don’t Be A Nut.
It’s better to avoid chronic illness by not digging ourselves into a massive hole.
All of us make errors, your job is to learn from your own.
The Mental Side of Physical Breakdown
Every athlete who I’ve coached through a “syndrome” had a mental health issue connected to their illness.
John’s Experience:
Depression is the most common mental aspect of excessive fatigue/overtraining. The advice not to train is usually counterproductive in athletes, as it will increase the symptoms of depression. Replace training (temporarily) with Exercise for Health.
Avoid the trap, “I am not feeling well in training, I feel I am losing my fitness, I need to train harder.”
My good friend, Clas Björling, explained what it felt like on the inside of adrenal burnout. He also explained how his mental skills coach helped him get healthy again.
It was a four-stage process:
Find peace in the mind
End the urgency with returning to training
Pause all competitive plans
Do not plan the comeback
Until Clas embraced the above, he was not able to sustain health.
John’s Experience
Recognizing and accepting how you feel is the first step to recovery.
At an early stage, meet with your doctor to exclude underlying issues/causes, including:
Medical Issues: Get a physical examination and blood screen.
Stress: Work, financial or relationships.
Other: Including poor sleep, poor dietary habits and drugs & alcohol.
General Anxiety: Anxiety takes up a lot of energy.
Take steps to address these issues first, while putting training on the back burner.
Your recovery will have a mental and physical component, which often go hand in hand.
Seek help to address these common issues we all face.
When You Come Back
I treat syndromes like a combination stress and nervous system disorder. Meaning, we want to avoid excessive stress and strain on the nervous system.
How to recognize excessive stress or strain:
Unusually high resting or training heart rates.
Breathless feeling at low heart rates.
Energy crashes a few hours after exercise.
Chronically suppressed heart rate variability (HRV).
Disrupted, low quality sleep.
And the other Red Flags from the Adrenal Burnout case study.
The return is about retraining the body’s ability to positively adapt to stress.
By definition, if we’ve experienced a “syndrome,” we’ve been hit with something beyond our capacity to cope. I’m certain everyone wishes it was otherwise, but the starting point is admitting that our total stress load was greater than our ability to cope.
To retrain our ability to cope requires a change in approach:
No Sustained Max Effort Training: You will need to place personal health above all else.
Stop Depleting: Do not cut weight when you are recovering. You want to be in an anabolic phase, building yourself up.
Wake Up Same Time Every Day: You can’t control your sleep but you can control when you get out of bed. Pick a time and make sure you are up at that time. Get outside and go for an easy walk before you eat. Seek natural light.
Eliminate Anger & Anxiety Triggers (Online and In Real Life): Refocus towards building something that makes your larger life better.
Build A New Life: Put the pieces in place for life after competitive sport. Paradoxically, this will help you return to sport.
Eat A Low-Processed Diet: Put effort into eating real food. Our nutrition chapter will help.
Skip Group Training: Avoid the environment(s) that led to a downward spiral. Develop friends and interests outside of training.
Eliminate Nervous System Stimulants & Depressants: These can be emotional (anger, anxiety, etc) as well as physical (caffeine, high intensity, alcohol, etc). Act as if your nervous system needs to be nurtured back to stability.
Invert The List => If we invert the list then we have an effective recipe for making ourselves sick. How many of the above items (inverted) were part of your pre-illness lifestyle? Remove those triggers and stressors.
Real Talk
You may struggle with is a belief system that says you need excessive stress to be happy. Getting, and staying, healthy challenges our pre-illness sense of identity. As you work through these beliefs, be honest with your mental skills coach or therapist.
While you thought you could handle extreme stress, the illness was important feedback. You were accumulating stress towards the breaking point. Going forward, you will need to be smarter and more alert to the early signs of fatigue.
Your old life isn’t gone, but training will need to be different, even when you are back to full strength. Read Clas’ case study and be encouraged that healing is possible.
Your situation is temporary. Every single one of us has limits. Most people never discover their limits. You found yours. In a strange way, congratulations are in order.
Good luck and don’t be a nut.
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