Overtraining Syndrome Explained with Jill Colangelo | UltraRunning Magazine Podcast

Overtraining Syndrome is a condition that has haunted many runners, often leading to a frustrating halt in their training or even forcing them to step away from the sport they love. It's a phenomenon that can strike unexpectedly, leaving athletes bewildered and searching for answers. But fear not, my friends, for today, we are unraveling the mysteries surrounding this condition.
In our conversation with Jill Colangelo, we'll explore the signs and symptoms of Overtraining Syndrome and discuss why it is of utmost importance for ultrarunners to understand this condition. We'll dive into the underlying physiological mechanisms, how to differentiate it from normal fatigue, and the impact it can have on both the body and mind....and so much more!
EPISODE SPONSOR: Arc'teryx
Website: arcteryx.com/us/en/
ABOUT
Jill Colangelo is a Research Affiliate, Department of Forensic Psychiatry, University of Bern, Switzerland.
CONNECT
Instagram: @jillcolangelopsych
Website - Mentoring: www.jillcolangelo.com
RESEARCH
Mental Health Disorders in Ultra Endurance Athletes per ICD-11 Classifications: A Review of an Overlooked Community in Sports Psychiatry
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36976...
ULTRARUNNING MAGAZINE
Website: www.ultrarunning.com
Instagram: @ultrarunningmag
Facebook: / ultrarunningmag
Twitter: / ultrarunningmag
ABOUT SCOTTY SANDOW
Scotty has over 20-years of experience in the audio production industry. Career highlights include; executive producer of a top-rated morning talk show, co-founding an influential ultra-running podcast, launching the California Department of Public Health’s podcast and co-hosting an award-winning podcast for Placer County; The Placer Life. Scotty also consults with new podcast hosts - sharing his bag of tricks to launch podcasts. He lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills with his family and pet rabbit, Presley.
CONNECT:
Email: [e-mail]
Instagram: @ScottySandow

[@martinepeters9891]

I have a problem that I get these symptoms even with moderate exercise. It starts with less sleep, waking up multiple times and especially less REM sleep.

[@tyronrossouw44]

Thank you, Jill! This is so very helpful to me!

[@MilesVictors]

This was awesome! Thank you so much! I'm currently battling with understanding my own fatigue levels. Not sure if we are approaching OTS, but just wary of it. This was so well timed for me.

[@RossNoble1987]

Great convo!

[@peachmelba1000]

This was great. I'm not an ultra runner, just a regular athlete in his late 40s who has recently failed his own body with overtraining. This will be a relisten gor sure. Lots of value to take away.

[@tyronrossouw44]

Squatting, deadlifting, and compound movements 6 hours a week... really has got me feeling horrible. Mood is all over the place. Night sweats. Anxiety - sometimes with depression. Heart rate all over the place. Feel tired after waking up from a good nights sleep.. Glad this topic is being looked at more and more across the "waves".

[@DonTrump-sv1si]

Hay man im feeling this. How long did it take to get better? Im unable to walk from the parking lot to the store with out being tired. My arms are heavy and its hard to concentrate and everyone is irritating and im depressed. I cant even sleep good. Feel shitty. Is there hope here?

[@tyronrossouw44]

@@DonTrump-sv1si the best thing you can do is STOP training. You need to change your thinking to a period of restoration, think months not weeks. I have stopped training now for 4 weeks - and I can feel slight improvements. But I am allowing myself more time away from training. It's not easy - eating more and moving less, as Jill says, is not easy but you need to adopt the long term view. The ultimate goal is being healthy and enjoying your training, none of those apply to an overtrained person. Some things that have helped me. Read more - spend more time on hobbies, guitar playing, music making, whatever keeps the mind stimulated. Good diet - including healthy nutritious carbs (sweet potatoes, potatoes, etc) and lots of red meat.

[@vikashverma212]

Hey, having similiar symptoms, how long did it take you to heal fully?

[@user-cy7tb4ot8k]

2-3 years to full recover​@@vikashverma212

[@user-cy7tb4ot8k]

​@@vikashverma2122-3 years

[@user-pg2wb2ft5w]

My over training symptoms are usually a bad colder flu like symptoms like my body has completely broken down. I find a couple of days rest does the trick

[@mancampovestiminvatam]

That's just overreaching accompanied by a depressed immune system. I had that in the past until I learned to take care of my vitamin C intake, especially after training. The doses that work for me: - regular days with moderate or no training: 180-360 mg/day (1-2 tablets) - after excessive effort: 500-1000 mg on that day, and half of that the next day. The idea behind overtraining is that you don't recover in days. You're lucky if you do in months.

[@DarkoFitCoach]

I am in fitness and i overtrained myself into oblivion. Feeling like DEATH is a 100% correct description of it. I was certain i have some terminal disease. Its insane

[@DonTrump-sv1si]

Hay man im feeling this. How long did it take to get better? Im unable to walk from the parking lot to the store with out being tired. My arms are heavy and its hard to concentrate and everyone is irritating and im depressed. I cant even sleep good. Feel shitty. Is there hope here?

[@DarkoFitCoach]

@@DonTrump-sv1si i am still recovering buddy. Been out of the gym for almost 7months now. Slowly recovering yes. Depending on how deep the hole is that u dig for yourself it can be weeks or many many months to recover. I assume u stopped gym correct?

[@DonTrump-sv1si]

@@DarkoFitCoach Yes, a couple days out of gym. was feeling it a couple weeks ago and i took a week off because i felt good, but then bam, here she is again. Im 45 and im thinking im 25. I also started trt 6 months ago.

[@callum5752]

Hey, I've been out of the gym for 7 months too I think because of the same problem. What were your main symptoms? Currently I have chronic fatigue, and some level of insomnia. The worst one is every time I exert myself physically, in any sports, the next day it makes my fatigue so much worse and I can even end up ill. Do you experience the worsening of symptoms after even small amounts of exertion in sports? I had to quit my job, but i'm hanging on to my university studies, but every day I feel terrible and I hope I'll eventually make a full recovery.@@DarkoFitCoach

[@skmz2020]

For me its 10 months now i cant even walk for 5 min and every day feels like hell, i have done so many tests and everything came normal , i was running 15km every day for a month and one day suddenly I couldn’t get up … i am basically bedridden now ….. how are you feeling now ? What are you doing for recovery ??

[@MrTkennedy14]

I think I suffer from both OTS and exercise dependence. I didn’t hear her describing both happening simultaneously. I was training hard for two years (strength training and running) alternating days and then had a divorce and (temporarily) lost my career due to Covid. I then ramped up the training even harder. For 6 years I trained hard for approximately 90% of days. My body is chiseled but I feel like death. Going cold turkey feels like a worse version of hell. I also am very scared of losing muscle and gaining body fat. Do you think that doing a split of one day strength training, one day running, one day walking/stretching, and one day off would work? The combination of not getting a dopamine release and already feeling depressed/anxious is overwhelming. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[@oatypeddler264]

I am in the very same boat but with cycling. Sometimes can’t even cope with a day completely off the bike. I’m also really restrictive eating patter which exacerbates the problem. I can’t focus due to brain fog, but get so stressed on rest days that I’m completely exhausted and unproductive. A very stressful past decade with completing doctorate, loneliness, losing my mother. Massive loss of sexual function, cold, poor skin, and a resting heart rate of 40bpm. 😢

[@telesniper2]

Yeah it's quite easy to overtrain, and to do endurance training suppresses your testosterone quite a bit to begin with. There is no point to training more than 1.5 a day. There will be no conditioning benefit beyond that. That's what amateur runners don't realize, that training much more than this will cut your T in half! Jill is very knowledgeable about this fact, which few people seem to be familiar with or admit. The pros and NCAA athletes will supplement with just enough test to bring it back up into the normal range (so they can pass tests). That allows them to continue with brutal training regimens. That's kinda an open secret. That's why every now and then one will pop for high test. It's because they try to supplement just enough but keep it in the normal range, but it's hard to do because testosterone can fluctuate. So their body might rebound a little bit because they got a bit more sleep or ate something more nourishing or whatever and their T jumps a bit and BAM they're busted. But it's funny a lot of amateurs don't know it and keep trying to imitate college/pro runners training. A lot of people are just ignorant and lazy and do junk miles. Fit in better workouts in under 1.5 hours a day. That's plenty of time to do what you need to do. You should be training to run faster and faster pace, not longer miles on junk runs.