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Stage 3: Parasympathetic Overtraining
Chronic overtraining can lead to more serious brain, muscle, and metabolic imbalances. These continue to parallel chronic adrenal dysfunction and aerobic deficiency. Eventually, the body becomes exhausted, and many hormones are significantly reduced. In the adrenal glands, for example, the ability to produce normal levels of cortisol, DHEA, testosterone, and other hormones is lost; the result is just the opposite from Stages 1 and 2—low cortisol. This contributes to a worsening physical, chemical, and mental condition.
Stage 3 is typically accompanied by the lack of desire to compete and sometimes train, depression, significant injury, and most notably severe exhaustion. Performance may diminish considerably and many athletes in this state consider themselves “sidelined” or even retire from competitive sports. They are chronically fatigued, can’t keep up their normal training or racing paces, and typically have serious physical injuries. The MAF Test has usually regressed dramatically as the training heart rate is high, even though there is an abnormally low resting heart rate (the now overactive parasympathetic system lowers the resting heart rate). The chronic hormonal problems can result in increased sodium loss due to reduced aldosterone (the adrenal hormone that regulates minerals and water) and may increase the athlete’s vulnerability to hyponatremia—a serious condition of low sodium (although this condition can also appear in Stage 2). Athletes who are in the third stage of overtraining are seriously unwell, with some heading to chronic diseases of the heart, blood vessels, and other areas. Recovery and return to previous optimal levels of performance is a very difficult task.
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I’ve treated many athletes who came to my clinic in all the stages of overtraining. In addition, I’ve also watched too many athletes go through all three stages. One of the great American distance runners, Alberto Salazar, is a prime example. He wasn’t a patient of mine but his story has been told in countless magazine articles. In a span of three years, his performances were nothing short of amazing. He made the U.S. Olympic team in 1980 during the boycott. In his marathon debut later that same year, Salazar won his first marathon in New York. Just three months later, he set an American indoor 5K record (13:22). He also won the New York City Marathon the next two years and won the Boston Marathon in 1982. Along the way that year, he set an American 5K (12:11) and 10K (27:25) record.
Media reports about Salazar’s gruesome workout schedule made anyone wince with awe. I could not help thinking these incredible efforts could not last. And, seeing him a number of times at various races, I noticed his gait worsening. Around that time I met Salazar’s coach, Bill Dellinger, also the University of Oregon’s track coach, who himself was a three-time Olympian. We were both lecturing at a running camp. Dellinger had invited me to Oregon to see the school’s program and facilities.
Soon afterward, I spent time at the university with Dellinger, at his home, and at Salazar’s home. I witnessed Salazar’s training and diet routine firsthand. At the track, I watched Salazar run five one-mile repeats at 4:20 pace with a ninety-second one-lap recovery. There was no warm-up or cool-down; afterward Salazar drank two cans of soda and had lunch from Burger King.
Neither Dellinger nor Salazar were interested in making changes to a training routine that produced incredible victories in distances from 5K to the marathon. Salazar’s training routine included not only hard running but also extremely high mileage; he was running 200-mile weeks at one point, thinking that more was better. In addition he raced often. By 1983, Salazar’s times started to fall, beginning with a last-place finish in the 10K at the World Track and Field Championships, and two fifth-place finishes in the Rotterdam and Fukuoka marathons that year. He made the U.S. Olympic marathon team in 1984, but finished in fifteenth place at the Olympic race in Los Angeles.
Question: Long before I sensibly incorporated the MAF program into my running, every few months I would get to a certain level of conditioning—say, like ninety minutes—then my body would seem to start falling apart. Not a specific injury, but more like general fatigue and heavy-legs syndrome. That was then. Now, after six months of MAF training, that type of fatigue is thankfully gone. Last week, I went on a fivehour trail run, and all went reasonably well. My quads were a bit trashed from all the downhills, but I was in good shape and rested for the following four days, except for an easy one-hour bike ride. My first run was a forty-five-minute hilly run, at a slow pace. My legs still felt a little tired—but what I noticed was that there wasn’t fatigue or heavy legs like I’d had before MAF. Can you explain the difference between normal “soreness” and abnormal “soreness” caused by overtraining?
Answer: One difference is having built a good aerobic base. This will help with recovery in a dramatic way. For example, improved circulation brings in more nutrients and removes waste products, and improved aerobic muscle function better supports joints and muscles. Essentially, what you were experiencing in the past was an injury, albeit not your typical injury but one from which you could not recover quickly, like your body today can. Poor recovery is sometimes a chemical type of injury along with deficiencies in the aerobic system. Congratulations on remedying this problem. Being sore from some injury is usually more painful and longer lasting than being sore from a hard effort or a long hilly race, from which you can recover much faster.
Illness and injury became a chronic problem, and Salazar was always looking for a diagnosis of the cause of his declining performances. After the 1984 Olympics, Salazar attempted various comebacks, but his body and brain never allowed him to race seriously again. He reportedly even took Prozac for motivation to train. Salazar turned to coach other runners for Nike. In 2007, Salazar had a serious heart attack, and in 2008 was hospitalized again for severe high blood pressure and dehydration.
There are two important responses regarding the overtraining syndrome. The first, and most important, is to prevent it from occurring by learning how to get the most out of your training without going over the line. The second is recovering from overtraining if you’re already there.
