Posted: February 3, 2006

Multisport: Stress Response and Running Performance

From: Jason Gootman, MS, CSCS & Will Kirousis, BS, CSCS
USA Triathlon and USA Cycling Certified Coaches
Tri-Hard Sports Conditioning Systems
www.tri-hard.com

Stress, in relation to health, is any stimulus that affects your body’s normal set point. This set point is called homeostasis and is the process of maintaining a constant internal environment through a complex integration of biochemical processes. Thanks to endocrinologist Hans Seyle, we know that your body responds to stress with one general response (1).

• When encountering a new stressor (e.g., lack of sleep, new exercise, traffic) your body experiences a form of shock. In response to the shock, your body reacts with a predictable chain of events (e.g., soreness, fatigue) in an attempt to stimulate rest and thus rejuvenation-based cellular actions.
• If the stressor is removed, you are able to adapt to the stressor resulting in supercompensation. In training, supercompensation is often called the training affect. An example of this phenomenon could be the recovery from muscle soreness felt after a long run. You do not do another long run for several days, the soreness disappears, and you try a long run again. This time you do not become sore. Your body used the time in between long runs to “supercompensate” by improving the biochemical and biomechanical pathways required for running long. If the new stress is not removed allowing supercompensation, then a process called maladaption occurs. In training, maladaption appears as reduced performance and excessive fatigue (i.e., overtraining syndrome).
• If the symptoms of maladaption (fatigue, frequent illness, frequent or chronic injury, high blood lipids, high levels of the biochemical markers of inflammation, poor glucose tolerance, high blood pressure, etc.) are not noted, and their causes fixed (stressors removed), they ultimately lead to tremendous injury (e.g., prolonged illness, major injury) or eventually to death.

When thinking of the term “stress”, people typically associate it with feelings of being very under pressure or very busy. These situations are stressful. But stress also can appear in the form of poor sleep/rest habits, poor nutrition habits, excessive training, appropriate training, environmental toxins, and negative thought patterns. Literally every action you initiate and very thought you make can all invoke your bodies stress response. To much stress at one time, even “good stress” such as your workouts can lead to a downward spiral in your health and performance.

To look at stress in a real life scenario, let’s look at a typical runner and examine how her lifestyle choices affect her physiology and subsequently her health and performance.

Jane Normal is a 37-year-old runner. Jane is married and has two young children, ages 3 and 7. Jane works 40-50 hours a week as a legal secretary in a law office outside of Chicago. Jane has been active her whole life and began running after the birth of her first child as a way to lose some weight. She ended up in love with running and soon made it her primary form of physical activity. Three years ago Jane decided to enter a race. She ran a 5-K run and loved it. She has been racing 5-Ks and 10-Ks ever since, recently placing very well in her age group. This year Jane decided that she wanted to train for a June marathon.

As the year began, the upper Midwest was in the midst of a tough winter and Jane was very busy with work and her family. Her preparation time minimized, Jane decided that the "quality over quantity" method of training was the way to go. During this time she trained with a heart rate monitor, running at 80-90% of her maximum heart rate in most of her runs, to maximize her limited time. Despite her busy schedule, Jane made time to run six days per week averaging 8-10 hours/week.

Running conditions were poor most of the winter. Jane however, decides to be tough, sticking with running six days a week. She felt that other activities, like swimming or cross-country skiing would not prepare her for the demands of running a marathon.

At the beginning of April, Jane became sick and blamed it on exposure to people in her job. Not wanting to miss valuable training time, Jane goes to her doctor who quickly prescribes an antibiotic for her upper respiratory tract infection. Jane takes the medication and keeps training. Ten days later she is feeling ok again.

Jane has always wanted to perform well. As a result she has chosen to follow the Food Guide Pyramid and eats plenty of "whole" grain products like pasta, bread, and cereal bars to fuel her tough training. Also, Jane is steering clear of fat since she wants to avoid packing on any unnecessary weight.

About a week after feeling better, Jane is sick again. This time it is a mild infection of some type, leaving her feeling groggy and under the weather. Knowing that the marathon is only two months away Jane keeps on training and finishes her preparation for the race deciding she is recovered from her most recent illness.

As spring comes, Jane’s children become involved in soccer and little league. Jane’s need to transport her children and desire to watch their games now makes her time even more limited. Jane is now feeling pulled in many directions, despite this she continues to build her weekly mileage in preparation for the marathon.

In early May, Jane feels a small twinge of pain in her left knee. There is only one month until her marathon now and Jane knows that she must keep running in order to be ready. Jane decides to try two Advil a day for a week which helps some, but the pain still persists so Jane ups the dose to three Advil a day. After a few days, Jane’s pain is relieved so she pushes ahead with her training.

The marathon comes and Jane does finish. The first 10 miles went pretty well, but after that it became a walk a little/run a little struggle for Jane. Her stomach was so upset she had trouble taking in any sports drink. By mile 17, she didn’t even want to drink water and became very dehydrated by the finish. She finished 30 minutes shy of her goal time.

Despite her disappointing time and obvious struggle, Jane's family and friends all congratulate her on working so hard, and blame the poor performance on bad luck. Jane blames it on lack of fitness and decides she needs to put in more mileage and interval training. With great enthusiasm and work ethic, Jane keeps on training hard, deciding to enter a fall marathon.

So let’s take a peek inside Jane’s body and see what occurred physiologically during these months and what led to her disappointing performance.

Jane’s training (like yours does) created a phenomenon known as Adaptive Microtrauma (AM)—the bone/muscle/connective tissue (primarily) trauma caused by normal exercising. Generally speaking, this type of "injury", if allowed to recover, stimulates positive adaptations resulting in increased performance. If AM is not allowed to repair, a cycle of inflammation occurs that starts locally at the site of injury then grows to a systemic level. This inflammation is microscopic and is started by pro-inflammatory messengers called cytokines (2). This cycle of maladaption was accelerated in Jane for a several reasons.

First, she used only running in her training program. This is a problem for most people because running causes a great degree of AM resulting from strong eccentric contractions (from landing forces) with every stride. Jane’s high stress lifestyle (resulting in chronically-high levels of adrenalin), her poor diet (high in refined grains/sugar and very low in fat), and anaerobic-based training without a well-developed aerobic system all contributed to accelerating the process of systemic inflammation as well.

One serious consequence of this is a weakened immune system. As a result of her weakened immunity, Jane became sick easily, and was given antibiotics. Antibiotics target many types of microorganisms and not just the bad ones! As a result, Jane’s gut was stripped of the normal flora that live there helping digestion. Since yeast is the first flora to reestablish, they infest Jane’s gut before the other micro-organisms can regenerate (3). Since Jane was eating “right” with the Food Guide Pyramid she was eating plenty of pasta, bread, and other refined grain products like cereal bars, which make up the bottom of the Pyramid. The result was that the yeast in her gut were flourishing on a diet high in sugar (refined grains are treated essentially as sugar in the body), the yeasts favorite food! With yeast flourishing, Jane's body was being poisoned by toxins released through the yeast’s metabolism, including acetaldehyde and alcohol. The alcohol decreases the availability of omega-3 and 6 fatty acids, which are already at low levels because of Jane’s low-fat diet (3). These fatty acids are essential for the formation of a chemical called prostaglandin. Prostaglandin stimulates the production of T-Lymphocytes, the body's first line of defense from infection. Since T-lymphocyte production has been reduced, Jane’s body now becomes easily invaded by new pathogens, causing Jane's second low-grade infection. Now Jane has had two infections, and has a chronic level of alcohol affecting her brain by inhibiting the development and growth of nerve nets that allow optimal neural function (3). Without the neural systems and immune systems functioning well, Jane is unable to produce high-quality movement patterns, or protect her body from invading organisms.

With decreased ability to create quality motion, Jane begins to experience some knee pain that is a symptom of a biomechanical dysfunction of some sort (muscle imbalance). Rather than correct the imbalance, Jane attempts to cover up the pain with Advil. Advil is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). NSAID’s temporarily promote balance between your body’s natural pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory chemicals. In addition to providing only temporary relief (which is why you need to keep taking them to keep the pain away), NSAID’s have serious side effects if taken for an extended period of time. Some of the most notable affects include gastrointestinal bleeding and disruption of healthy digestion of food/absorption of nutrients (4).

Additionally, Jane kept training hard, increasing the microtrauma to her musculo-skeletal system and this, in concert with the infections she suffered and the yeast over-proliferation in her gut created an even greater degree of systemic inflammation. The result was a steady decline in Jane's level of homeostasis and therefore health. As health decreases so does performance, so Jane's poor race would be expected!

Here is a list of things Jane could have done and you can do to promote the positive management of stressors and continually grow healthier and stronger as a runner:

• Focus your workouts at an aerobic intensity (60-80% of your maximum heart rate) and gradually increase the intensity of your workouts as your training progresses.
• Cross-train. Besides giving your body a break from the eccentric contraction demands of running, cross-training also allows for variety in your training. Additionally, cross-training can help prevent muscle imbalances from developing. Strength/power training, hiking, showshoe hiking, swimming, cycling, indoor rowing, basketball, racquetball, tennis, and soccer are all great forms of cross-training for runners.
• Avoid refined, processed foods. Instead choose whole, natural foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, lean red meats, poultry, fish, and eggs. Eat all other foods sparingly and when doing so eat the most whole, most natural forms available. Avoid low-fat diets. Fats provide essential nutrients. Drink water copiously throughout the day.
• Avoid medication unless you have consulted with your doctor first. Ask your doctor if there are ways to treat the cause of your illness and not simply treat the symptoms.
• When you are ill or tired, rest. Period. That does not mean you should not seek medical treatment. It means that “training through” or “being a trooper” is the act of a strong person, but a naïve one. Train smart! Treat your body well, and make rest a priority, especially when you are tired.
• Make efforts to control hectic nature of your life. Make sure to set some time each day for rest, even if it is a very short time. Make sure to get a good night’s sleep each night.

We hope that through the example of Jane Normal we have increased your awareness of how stress can affect your body and examined some of the common stressors in our lives. By applying the tips above to your lifestyle and controlling the stressors in your life, you will go a long way towards improving your health and boosting your running!

References
1.) Selye, Hans. The Stress Of Life. McGraw Hill Book Co. USA 1976.
2.) Smith, Lucille Lakier. Cytokine hypothesis of overtraining: a physiological adaptation to excessive stress? Med Sci Sports Exerc. Feb 2000.
3.) Hannaford, Carla. Smart Moves, Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head. Great Ocean Publishers, Arlington VA, USA 1995.
4.) Maffetone, Phillip; Eating for Endurance. David Barmore Productions. Stamford, NY USA 1999.

Jason Gootman MS, CSCS and Will Kirousis BS, CSCS coach endurance athletes of all levels, write for conditioning related magazines/journals, and provide educational services for private and professional groups about optimizing endurance sports performance through their company Tri-Hard Sports Conditioning Systems. Jason and Will, USA Triathlon and USA Cycling Certified Coaches, can be reached with questions or comments through their website www.tri-hard.com or via email at jason@tri-hard.com and will@tri-hard.com respectively.