Chill out, people!
The effects of stress on weightlifting
Most of us will understand that we need stress in order to adapt physically. Stress in the form of resistance exercise is what gets most of us through our week. There is however a dichotomy between the physical stress we need to improve and the psychological stress that hinders our improvement.
We all experience stress
The past 10 or so months have been hugely challenging for most of us and that has a burden on our mental wellbeing. Anyone who hasn’t felt more stressed than normal during periods of social isolation, financial tension and educational turmoil is possibly a robot. Or a psychopath.
An interesting finding in 2014 was that whether perceived or ‘real’, psychological stress negatively impacted peoples ability to recover from strenuous training. The study looked at university exams and physical training over a 4-day period and found several markers of muscle regeneration were significantly lower than control groups (1).
Although the period studied was only 4 days there is much we can learn and take away. The hormonal changes needed to recover from hard training are diametrically opposed to the hormonal changes during stressful periods. Stress blunts and even prevents the body adapting positively.
Any training therefore done during periods of very high stress can have two potential consequences; injury and illness OR to actually create a de-training effect.
If we break down muscle tissue and stress the nervous system with tough training sessions without then also creating an environment where healing and replenishing can occur, it stands to reason that we have actually got worse at the things we wanted to improve.
Even recovery from injury is likely impacted by psychological stress. The physical and mental play a much more intertwined game of cat and mouse than first appears. A 2009 meta-analysis found that multiple studies on tissue healing were prolonged by perceived (and therefore real) stress. It concluded that methods to reduce or mediate the effects of stress should be investigated.
In the weightlifting and strength training world we concern ourselves so much with physical recovery. Speeding up and cheating the bodies natural patterns of healing. Finding hacks and supplements to be able to tolerate more training and more load. What the research alludes to is that measuring and managing our mental stress is also hugely impactful.
Measure and manage
I believe that most people know when they are physically run down but recognising early the feelings of mental stress is a little more nuanced. Simple things like resting hear rate, how long and how deeply you sleep, how quick to anger or emotion you are compared to your normal. I don’t personally use any devices or questionnaires but they seem useful for many. For me, talking to close friends and relatives, exercise of all sorts and music usually prove enough to mediate my stress. You must figure out your own measures as well as your tactics of stress reduction to make the most out of all the hard work you put into training.
Knowing you’re in an unavoidable period of high stress should therefore alter your training focus. To burn the candle at both ends is asking for trouble. A sensible approach may be to reduce training volume by around 30% as you would do in a traditional de-load, but for as long as the stress was heightened beyond control. You could even chose to skip a lower priority session in favour of a long walk or spending time stretching.
Remember it is only the training you can recover from that makes you stronger.
Chronic psychological stress imparts recover of muscular function and somatic sensations over a 96-hour period. M.A Stults-Kolehmainen, J. B. Bartholomew and R. Sinhaz (2014)
Psychological stress and wound healing in humans: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J. Walburna, K. Vedharab, M. Hankinsa, L. Rixona and J. Weinman (2009)