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The nature of multisport training has athletes out on the road or in the pool between 1-6 hours a day. Now, don’t be mistaken, cortisol is not an inherently “bad” hormone; balanced levels are responsible for baseline vital functions in the body.
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However, an excess or dearth of cortisol both indicate an unbalanced system: too high or too low. They are both bad in their own ways. As an athlete, you must take care to mitigate prolonged, or chronic, exposure to stressors, lest your endocrine system, particularly your adrenal glands, become overworked.
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The following are my recommendations for 10 steps you can take in your
training, right now – and they are simple to implement – that will, over time,
lead a more balanced endocrine system: which will keep you strong, lean, and happy.
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1. TRAIN YOUR MIND:
Before we get into the physical steps, let’s talk about thought processes. This is where it all begins. If you approach your training with patience and your nutrition with balance you will:
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a. Be able to sustain the positive improvements easily.
b. Drastically lower your mental stress levels, which can have a significant effect on your cortisol levels & wellbeing in general.
2. CREATE A MARKED DICHOTOMY BETWEEN GOING HARD AND RECOVERING
In your training you will want to really focus on recovery when you are recovering and on going hard when you do your interval work. People say it all the time but it’s still very common to overlook and most of us tend to continue slogging away as a one-speed athlete somewhere in the middle. There is no shame in going easy on your rest days. Race during the race. Train intelligently so you will have a good race.
3. TRAIN EXPLOSIVENESS
My 17 year old brother, a high school runner, is looking to get his times into the mid-15’s for 5km and 4:12-18 for the mile this year. He has great inherent talent and speed, however, as he looks toward bringing himself to the next level (i.e. sub-15 and low-4 min), he should be placing a large
emphasis on training his explosive power in his entire body (including upper body).
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Beyond the fact that the training is undertaking should focus deliberately on increasing both his stride rate and length (which equals increased speed), and deeply strengthening the muscles in his core (back & front) and quads, he should also be looking to create a noticeable increase in circulating testosterone & growth hormone release over the coming months, while simultaneously decreasing cortisol levels via whole body resistance training.
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Training fast-twitch muscle fibers has long been scientifically-correlated with increased levels of testosterone and growth hormone, both of which have been found to have antagonistic effects on excess cortisol – especially with regards to breakdown of adipose/fat tissue.
4. TRAIN IN THE AFTERNOON/EVENING
This may be a big change, but I recommend sleeping in (#8) and undertaking your training in the afternoon or evening. Research has shown that, because some hormonal secretions tend to be influenced by circadian cycles, subjecting your body to training stress in the morning, a time when your circulating cortisol levels are naturally high, may be counterproductive for those trying to reach a balance.
5. MITIGATE FREE-RADICAL EXPOSURE
Large amounts of exercise are known to create an imbalance between levels of antioxidants and free radicals, a process known as oxidative
stress. If you are training heavily, you’ll want to supplement your diet with some common antioxidants: vitamins A, C, E, glutathione, and flavonoids being the easiest to get your hands on.
6. TRAIN USING VOLUME…AND QUALITY
Loads of people – coaches, gurus, & weekend warriors alike – love to draw lines in the sand. We all love to think that our way is the best way.
Multisport culture has been fixated on this forever-old training debate regarding quality versus quantity.
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I’m here to tell you that you should do both. In the effort of balancing your endocrine system, you must take a balanced approach to many other things, including training.
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Repping out hard interval workouts 4 or 5 times a week is just as
unhealthy as slogging 110 mile weeks at 160bpm. Refer back to #2 and take that idea and apply it to your training. When you go out for a recovery run, makes sure it’s rejuvenating. Shoot for a constant low heart rate, even if it means walking up hills. Walking is so underrated. Recover.
And when you do hit the track or the hills, really punch the gas. It’s good for you. And do it in shorter, harder intervals.
7. BECOME FAT-ADAPTED
Increased HPA activation, cortisol secretion in particular, has been implicated in visceral obesity and the accumulation of stomach fat. Becoming fat-adapted as an athlete – teaching your body to call upon its fat stores for energy, as opposed to its glycogen and sugar sources – will allow you to not only decrease your levels of circulating cortisol over time, but also limit hunger, decrease body fat levels, increase insulin sensitivity, and maintain lean muscle mass.
This can be done primarily through fasted training - very straightforward.
8. SLEEP AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
Sleep is one of the body’s finest homeostatic regulatory mechanisms: give it the opportunity to do its work. Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to catch some Z’s if you’re looking to reach a balance. Sleep is also wonderful for memory consolidation. Lack of sleep has been found to dramatically elevate cortisol levels over the following day.
9. PRACTICE FASTING
Intermittent fasting is a wonderful thing. And nowadays there is a ton of good information on it all over the internet. For most sugar-burning endurance athletes it will be near impossible to make the switch to daily fasting while still maintaining your current training load. That is why it’s so important to train your body to become fat-adapted.
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I’ve found that personally I can now go well into the afternoon with a fast, then do an entire workout (even had a period where I would do a routine 8 mile run fasted), before eating my first meal (and it was a BIG one ;D ). This is fat-adaptation. My workouts are great, and I have tons of energy all day, because my body burns a high percentage of fat for fuel, not sugars.
Intermittent fasting, even without a decrease in overall caloric intake, has been shown to significantly decrease cortisol concentrations.
10. BE INCREDIBLY PATIENT
You didn’t get out of whack in day so don’t expect to fix it in a week. The
process of balancing your endocrine system is long and slow, requiring
constant implementation of these simple changes. This is especially true for endurance athletes, due to the nature of constant exposure to negative stress. The best method to induce sustainable change is to integrate them into your lifestyle so they’re second nature.