Have you ever wondered what stress does to your body and how it affects your training?

The purpose of the adrenal gland is to help the body to cope with stress and help it to survive. Each adrenal gland has two compartments. The inner, or medulla, modulates the sympathetic nervous system through secretion and regulation of two hormones called epinephrine and norepinephrine. These hormones are responsible for the fight or flight response. These hormones are more commonly known as adrenaline. The outer, adrenal cortex, comprises eighty per cent of the adrenal gland and is responsible for producing over fifty different types of hormones. The most important is cortisol.

Cortisol is a catabolic hormone that has many systemic effects. It increases blood sugar to provide fuel, inhibits inflammation, suppresses the immune system, and constricts blood vessels. It does these things for one reason: to allow you to survive when faced with immediate stress. However, the body is like the poker player that goes “all in”; it doesn’t conserve for tomorrow. If cortisol levels are kept high with stress, it will continue to react with higher and prolonged cortisol levels until the body rests. Cortisol is secreted at its highest level around eight a.m., after which there is a gradual decline throughout the day with its lowest levels occurring between midnight and four a.m. Although cortisol is necessary in the stress response, your adrenals have another anabolic hormone known as DHEA that opposes it and helps the body with repair. The key is to balance these two, allowing both optimal breakdown to mobilize fuel and repair to replace and strengthen the broken-down tissue.

We usually think of exercise as a stress reliever, but your body’s main concern is survival. It doesn’t think you are running toward something; it thinks you are running away. When training and the regular stresses of our daily lives lead the body to believe it is constantly under attack, it responds by breaking down tissue to make more fuel available for escape. When taken too far, we end up in burnout. Although each individual is different, the path to adrenal fatigue follows a predictable pattern; only the timing and the severity are different from individual to individual.

The following is a list of symptoms that signal we’ve taken the adrenals to their limits:

• Tendency to gain weight and inability to lose it, especially around the waist
• High frequency of flu and other respiratory diseases, symptoms lasting longer than usual
• Tendency to tremble when under pressure
• Reduced sex drive
• Lightheadedness when rising from a prone position
• Inability to remember things
• Lack of energy in the mornings and also in the afternoon between three and five p.m.
• Sudden enhanced mood for a brief period after a meal
• Fatigue between nine and ten p.m., but resistance going to bed
• Need for coffee or stimulants to get going in the morning
• Craving for salty, fatty, and high-protein food such as meat and cheese
• Increased symptoms of PMS for women; periods heavy, stopped, or almost stopped on the fourth day, only to start flow again on the fifth or sixth day.
• Pain in the upper back or neck with no apparent reasons
• Difficulty getting up in the morning

Stress + Rest = Success

This formula has been around forever and still applies today. However, today many athletes fail to implement a very important component of this formula: rest. Rest can be implemented in many form: days off, cross-training, very low-intensity activity specific to your sport, etc.

During rest the body re-builds the tissue and systems we stressed when working out. Without rest the body is continually in a catabolic state (tear down), nose-diving to disaster. Rest is a very important aspect to optimal daily functioning and repair. Babies grow and develop largely when they sleep, which is why they need a great amount of sleep in the first and second years. Though we can’t take time off to sleep as much as a baby, we can take recovery days knowing that downtime is a great way to re-build the body to a stronger state. Exercise or training goes to waste if you don’t provide the right nutrients and necessary time to repair

Planning your performance goals is best done over longer periods of time. This allows for optimal adaptation time for all systems in the body including cardiovascular, muscular, skeletal, and hormonal. We set goal plans in cycles. These cycles are referred to as macro-cycles—“big picture” or the “business plan”—and the micro-cycles—or the short-term plan. In the world of sport, most successful athletes and Olympians have a four- to eight-year long-term plan for success. To accomplish our own modest goals, long-term planning is equally beneficial.

Make sure that your training allows all the systems of your body to adapt at your own rate, and take the time to plan for proper training stimulus (stress) and rest.

Stages of training and the hormonal response

Stage #1 Happy and healthy

You have good energy to train, work, and family.
Hormonal training response is normal.
Normal rise in cortisol and minimal rise in DHEA.
Recovery is normal and you are ready for your next key workout.
What to do: You train as planned, cycling between eighty and one hundred per cent of your training plan and be sure to adhere to your scheduled rest days. Resist the temptation to go hard on easy days because you feel so good. Once in a while is okay, but over a period of four to six months you will nose-dive by overstressing your body, and your key workouts will begin to suffer. Always try to have one full day off to regenerate mentally and physically.

Stage #2 Fatigue and lagging motivation is lagging

You feel tired or under-recovered from your workouts, but can still will yourself through the key workouts. Self-motivation for the other areas of your life may be par at best.
Chronic elevation of cortisol and DHEA, creating a maladaptive response to stress.
What to do: Training plan or other stressors in your life need to be adjusted. This may be only for a short period of a few weeks or until your energy and motivation has returned. Cut your training back twenty to thirty per cent. Insert more days off, decreasing the number or degree of intense workouts, or cross-train at an easy intensity. This is a critical stage to recognize. Your body is communicating that something is not right with your training response. If you don’t adjust at this stage, recovery certainly will be longer and may even take months to recover from the next stages of fatigue.

Stage #3 Fatigue with no motivation

You dread your workouts.
Work is a total drag and you too are a drag in family and social matters.
Your hormonal response is experiencing a steep drop in cortisol and DHEA soon after waking, and your adrenal response has tanked as well.
What to do: Obviously, training for a goal must be put on hold. Reduce your training to mild exercise with no scheduled workouts. Exercise only for short periods at a time and only if you feel like it. Get plenty of rest and eat and drink nutritiously. At this stage medically supervised supplementation and testing may be suggested.

Stage #4 Exhaustion

You are very tired, with no energy for workouts.
You feel burned out, depressed, and have a decreased sex drive.
The adrenal glands are depleted and are unable to emit a response to stimuli.
What to do: Training in this stage is non-existent; mild exercise may even be difficult. A mild yoga practice or stretching will be beneficial. Sleep throughout the day is craved and is necessary. Again, medical supervision for recovery may be necessary, as rest alone is often not enough to drag you out of this state.

About the Authors

Dr. Jeoff Drobot is the founder and medical director of the Calgary Centre for Naturopathic Medicine. See www.calgary naturopathic.com.

Heather Wiebe coaches marathon groups in Calgary, Alberta, in association with Strides Running Store.