Treating Sympathetic Overtraining Syndrome

Bigger Stronger Leaner Injuries and Rehab
1

I’m looking for some advice or guidelines from people knowledgeable about sympathetic overtraining.

I’m a 23 year old male, I’ve been training since I was 16. My training methods have varied throughout my lifting “career” but I’ve always pushed myself as hard as I feel my body will allow. Lately though, I’ve been having some severe issues with recovery from exercise. Initially, I began noticing some severe fatigue, as well as potent changes in behavior and mood state. Naturally, I said “fuck it” because I didn’t want to slow myself down. Within a week I noticed a substantial decrease in tolerance for training volume, so I reduced my volume - no biggie, right?

Turns out I was wrong. Within a few days my sleep became highly disrupted. I had six consecutive nights where I either couldn’t fall asleep at all, or woke up after one sleep cycle with a huge adrenaline rush (what one might consider a panic attack). My resting heart rate was typically in the range of 88-100 BPM, and I was getting unprovoked adrenaline responses every few minutes. My body temperature was ridiculous, and I was having bizarre changes in appetite which seemed like they might be a consequence of altered blood glucose regulation. It seems like I was facing some adrenal dysfunction of some sort.

At this point, I dropped training entirely and started looking into whether or not my adrenal issues were a result of overtraining. Within a few days of ceasing training, my sleep was on its way to normalcy. After about three days I reached a “baseline” physiological state where my resting heart rate returned to a normal value (between 65 and 72 usually), and after maintaining this baseline state for about four or five days, I returned to training yesterday with very limited volume and load (squat 3x5 weighted dip 3x5 deadlift 1x5; all with less than 50% 1RM - this is nothing compared to my usual 2++ hour training sessions 4-5 days a week). After training, my resting heart rate remained elevated (mid-high 80’s) all day, and I did not sleep at all. It seems like I have not actually resolved my issues.

Also at this point, let me interject here that my “life stress” is very low right now.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before? I’m hoping to get some sort of idea on how to know when I’m ready to return to training. Clearly just measuring my resting heart rate and watching my sleep patterns doesn’t quite explain everything.

Also, I’ve avoided getting overly specific until the end, because people usually have limited success when they get overly specific and enter the realm of pedantic - but I might as well take a shot.
-What are the best ways of measuring disturbances to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis? (eg. testing ACTH levels)
-How long could I expect to have a decreased tolerance to physical stress? (I realize the answer here is highly variable)
-Do any sort of measurements or metrics exist that would give me a better idea of when I am ready to return to training? (Resting heart rate and qualitative measures of sleep quality were about the best I had, and they didn’t get me too far)

2

Well, i remember i had problems with falling asleep and had elevated HR when i started training (i over-over-did it back then). Anyway, i have never stood awake all night, but i remember having troubles to fall asleep though i was veeery tired.

I don’t remember i had similar problems since i started supplementing with magnesium and zinc. Are you taking these minerals?

3

[quote]nny wrote:
Well, i remember i had problems with falling asleep and had elevated HR when i started training (i over-over-did it back then). Anyway, i have never stood awake all night, but i remember having troubles to fall asleep though i was veeery tired.

I don’t remember i had similar problems since i started supplementing with magnesium and zinc. Are you taking these minerals?[/quote]

I’ve been taking ZMA (zinc, magnesium, B6) erratically. I began taking it religiously when I was having difficulty sleeping, but I started to kind of slack a bit once my sleep improved (while I was abstaining from training). I didn’t really notice a difference when my ZMA supplementation started slipping, but I also wasn’t training at the same time.

I’ll definitely be a bit more proactive about taking ZMA all of the time, especially when I resume training.

I’m starting to think that 4-6 weeks is a more realistic timeframe than 1-2 weeks with regards to my ability to tolerate training-induced stress, even at lower levels.

I’m hoping to hear from someone who has experienced the same issue, so I can figure out what to expect with regards to the timeframe.

4

Hey man how much do you weigh and how much protein are you gettings each day? Better yet how many calories? I had similar issues for awhile. Every time i would do PR work with my squat, clean & jerk, snatch, and especially DL my cns would be taxed and i’d become extremely restless.

Once I started pushing myself to eat a lot more I noticed I felt much better. If you are training 2+ hours a day you need lots of food. You could also try supplementing melatonin. Also, how much of your training is involving slow cardio?

5

[quote]andrewk369 wrote:
Hey man how much do you weigh and how much protein are you gettings each day? Better yet how many calories? I had similar issues for awhile. Every time i would do PR work with my squat, clean & jerk, snatch, and especially DL my cns would be taxed and i’d become extremely restless.

Once I started pushing myself to eat a lot more I noticed I felt much better. If you are training 2+ hours a day you need lots of food. You could also try supplementing melatonin. Also, how much of your training is involving slow cardio?[/quote]

I’m 6’0" and just under 190 pounds right now, at a reasonably lean body composition. I eat almost the same thing every day (I have one meal that varies day-to-day) - I’m comsuming about 3000 kcal and about 240 grams of protein per day. This is actually a pretty big caloric deficit for me (I’ve always been on the very thin side, and I probably need about 3600kcal to maintain my bodyweight).

As far as cardio goes, I was doing exactly zero. Since I’ve been having issues with my sleep, I’ve actually added in some 30-45 minute walks outside, and some steady-state work on the stationary bike. Also, as far a melatonin goes, I take it every night.

Your response reminded me of the fact that I have been trying to accomplish too many different goals with my training all at the same time. I wanted to improve my body composition, rehabilitate a couple injuries, improve my work capacity, and make modest improvements in some dimensions of my physique (eg. “spot” hypertrophy). Anyone with a half a brain could tell you that’s a terrible idea. I suppose I am just driven enough to not want to be inconvenienced by reality.

In fact, that’s why I did a “Starting Strength” styled training session, and I’m planning on running the program once my body allows me to accommodate training stress.

6

This might not be very helpful, but…

I don’t really believe one can mess-up himself this much only with training too hard and/or too frequently. What i do believe is that last two in combination with malnutrition can result in something like this.

Not as much as you did, but i also used to mess-up myself with overdoing things while undereating. I don’t know if that is due to hromones or NS or both, but i had problems. I’m female so chances are that we are not experiencing same problem in general, though cause might be the same.

What i realized over time is that as long as i was eating enough (even if i ate junk), i was doing ok. As soon as i started dieting, induced caloric deficit, problems occured.

What I’m suggesting is to eat more. Make sure you also take in some fat. Make your training lighter for few weeks as see what happens.
Counting calories isn’t really accurate, nor is estimation of your body’s needs in terms of energy. Maybe you are in bigger caloric deficit than you think.

7

[quote]nny wrote:
This might not be very helpful, but…

I don’t really believe one can mess-up himself this much only with training too hard and/or too frequently. What i do believe is that last two in combination with malnutrition can result in something like this.

Not as much as you did, but i also used to mess-up myself with overdoing things while undereating. I don’t know if that is due to hromones or NS or both, but i had problems. I’m female so chances are that we are not experiencing same problem in general, though cause might be the same.

What i realized over time is that as long as i was eating enough (even if i ate junk), i was doing ok. As soon as i started dieting, induced caloric deficit, problems occured.

What I’m suggesting is to eat more. Make sure you also take in some fat. Make your training lighter for few weeks as see what happens.
Counting calories isn’t really accurate, nor is estimation of your body’s needs in terms of energy. Maybe you are in bigger caloric deficit than you think.[/quote]

I’ll agree with the idea that I was likely undereating more than I thought. I’m usually pretty meticulous about my food intake, as well as planning/tracking it with microsoft excel spreadsheets.

The fat definitely is not a problem here - I eat a diet that’s pretty low in carbohydrates, and all of my carbohydrates come from fibrous sources like beans and oats. I get a bit over 55% of my calories from fat. If anything I’d guess that the biggest issue was doing long training sessions that were really taxing on glycolytic metabolism (a lot of work in the 4-10 rep range), while only getting about 125 grams of carbohydrates per day. I even changed my carbohydrate source during training from a dextose/maltodextrin mix to oats (I actually started experiencing the onset of issues within a week or so after making this change).

The reason I did this was to maintain a highly elevated state of fat metabolism (insulin is a pretty potent inhibitor of fat metabolism), but I didn’t realize that it would be at the expense of a healthy physiology. I’ve heard that low blood glucose creates a cortisol response, and I would not be surprised if I had chronically low blood glucose, which was sending a chronic signal to my hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenals to work overdrive in order to try to maintain a homeostatic blood glucose level.

When all of this stuff started happening, I wasn’t training harder than I’ve ever trained before. I’ve definitely pushed myself harder than this. That definitely reinforces the idea that there is some sort of nutritional or recovery component behind it.

So yes, your response was actually pretty helpful in helping me realize that my dietary habits were unsustainable, that my phobia of non-fibrous carbohydrates probably contributed significantly to the messed-up state I’m in, and even further, that deviating too much from the “well-beaten path” with regards to commonly accepted training and dietary practices can have some bad consequences.

8

What time of day do you train, or were you training when the sleep disturbances hit? If its in the evening you might not be giving your body sufficient time to come out of sympathetic mode. Consider training earlier unless you already are.

Some things to consider with regards to sleep would be: the temperature of the room (should be cool, around 70 degrees F), are you sleeping in total darkness?

I like the idea of staying consistent with the ZMA, but you could also add in 500mg-1000mg of vitamin C at night to help lower cortisol levels. I’d use caution with the melatonin, especially it becoming a nightly routine though it might be helpful in a pinch.

9

[quote]creeep wrote:
What time of day do you train, or were you training when the sleep disturbances hit? If its in the evening you might not be giving your body sufficient time to come out of sympathetic mode. Consider training earlier unless you already are.

Some things to consider with regards to sleep would be: the temperature of the room (should be cool, around 70 degrees F), are you sleeping in total darkness?

I like the idea of staying consistent with the ZMA, but you could also add in 500mg-1000mg of vitamin C at night to help lower cortisol levels. I’d use caution with the melatonin, especially it becoming a nightly routine though it might be helpful in a pinch.[/quote]

I usually train 11-12 hours before I go to bed. Your remark about “coming out of sympathetic mode” is pretty spot on: until the sleep disturbances hit, I was loving the feeling of always being “on” so I kind of facilitated excessive sympathetic activation when I maybe shouldn’t have.

My sleep environment is pretty good; usually mid-60’s, and totally dark.

I’m intrigued by the Vitamin C - I wasn’t aware of any link between Vitamin C and cortisol, so I’ll try to do some reading about that.

Regarding the melatonin, I’ve been taking it for a long time. I found it was effective, and once I find something effective, I don’t like to change it. Maybe this is a good opportunity to try weaning off of it.

I definitely appreciate all of this feedback I’ve been getting - I know the injury/rehab forum tends to be pretty slow, so thanks to everyone who has had something to say.

10

Hi mate,
Just trawling the web and came across your post (there’s not too much out there on treating sympathetic overtraining syndrome).

Your experiences mirror my own very similarly and wondering how you are going with the recovery?

Cheers

11

[quote]Benway wrote:

[quote]creeep wrote:
What time of day do you train, or were you training when the sleep disturbances hit? If its in the evening you might not be giving your body sufficient time to come out of sympathetic mode. Consider training earlier unless you already are.

Some things to consider with regards to sleep would be: the temperature of the room (should be cool, around 70 degrees F), are you sleeping in total darkness?

I like the idea of staying consistent with the ZMA, but you could also add in 500mg-1000mg of vitamin C at night to help lower cortisol levels. I’d use caution with the melatonin, especially it becoming a nightly routine though it might be helpful in a pinch.[/quote]

I usually train 11-12 hours before I go to bed. Your remark about “coming out of sympathetic mode” is pretty spot on: until the sleep disturbances hit, I was loving the feeling of always being “on” so I kind of facilitated excessive sympathetic activation when I maybe shouldn’t have.

My sleep environment is pretty good; usually mid-60’s, and totally dark.

I’m intrigued by the Vitamin C - I wasn’t aware of any link between Vitamin C and cortisol, so I’ll try to do some reading about that.

Regarding the melatonin, I’ve been taking it for a long time. I found it was effective, and once I find something effective, I don’t like to change it. Maybe this is a good opportunity to try weaning off of it.

I definitely appreciate all of this feedback I’ve been getting - I know the injury/rehab forum tends to be pretty slow, so thanks to everyone who has had something to say.[/quote]

I think you have a pretty good grasp on baseline values with RHR as a measuring stick. Remember repeated stimulation such as weightlifting for an extended period of time can actually lead to decreases in hypertrophy and strength, there always needs to be a minimal time with minimal load period built into your training. With the holiday coming up it would be a good time to take a step back off of training and bump the calories up. The only other variable I can think of is your caffeine intake and use of preworkouts?

12

[quote]Monolith351 wrote:
Hi mate,
Just trawling the web and came across your post (there’s not too much out there on treating sympathetic overtraining syndrome).

Your experiences mirror my own very similarly and wondering how you are going with the recovery?

Cheers

[/quote]

Howdy,
I am very happy to report that my issues have resolved and that I’m back to functioning at a high level. My disturbances lasted for about 6 or 7 weeks in total, and my training was derailed entirely for a bit over two months (during this time, I did little more than going for hikes and long walks in the woods). I tried a large number of interventions that might be suggested (eg. aerobic/endurance training to increase parasympathetic tone, magnesium supplementation, herbal supplements, and a handful of others), but ultimately I didn’t notice any difference from any one intervention. I think the things that were the most important were the “bigger picture” things:

  1. Stopping training
  2. Prioritizing returning to some sort of physiological baseline
  3. Finding alternate outlets - for me, spending time outdoors and using relaxation techniques were instrumental.

The experiences I went through were very difficult at the time, but now that I’m beyond it, they were immensely valuable to me.
First off, it gave me an appreciation for the “recovery” aspect of training, which I had overlooked as it’s a passive process, where you don’t “do” anything. Sometimes it’s easy to get into the mode of asking “what more can I do?” I even went so far as to think that recovery was some sort of active process which I had significant ability to modify by using all sorts of “recovery modalities” that might be suggested to you. Adding more is seldom the answer to recovery, whether it’s stretching/tissue work, icing, or eating a supposedly ideal diet. Be careful with this mentality, and make sure that if your training is causing you to be tapping into your “reserves” that you’re not doing it for an extended period of time.
As an adjunct to the previous line of thought, this experience has given me an appreciation for periodization. I currently am planning my training long-term in year-long blocks with mesocycles of about 8 weeks, and some time off in between each one. I have also been training three days per week since getting back on track. This has been absolutely sufficient. I also used the opportunity to start fresh and learn Olympic weightlifting, which has been very enjoyable.
Overall, I have learned to drop a lot of the minutia and most of the anxiety over training. Sometimes it takes terrible, difficult, and frightening things to help us move forward and change our perspective. The harder the experience, the more potent the lessons, and the more you grow from it.

Respect your body and have faith that it’s constantly working, often in ways you can’t feel or perceive, to put you back into homeostasis.

Regards

13

Thanks for the prompt response Benway, glad to hear that it’s all worked out for the best!

I’ll take on board some of your tips.

To anyone else reading this for future reference, my doctor prescribed me some beta blockers (namely propranolol @ 40mg) to help keep the heart rate down and abate some the of the symptoms. That being said, I’m not fully recovered yet so this may not have been the best course of action.

Once again, thanks for the info!

Cheers
M351