Stress is Stress.
The Stress You Don't Count. Still Counts.
“We are doing the most human thing of all – pursuing what we want to do in the face of the howling headwind of what we ought to do”
The Sheer Power of a Great Question
I was approached recently by a writer/author, Nicola K Smith to comment on an article that she is currently working on for Cycling Plus. Nicola quoted something that I apparently said or have previously written:
“I know Phil has talked about the shift from training stress to total system stress”
Aside from not remembering where or when I said those particular words, (it does, however, sound like something that I would say), the writer goes on to pose remarkably apposite questions about accumulated stress. So much so that my elongated reply rapidly resembled a Substack.
This Substack.
Cycling Plus and Nicola have kindly allowed me feature her questions and my responses. I will link to Nicola’s article when it is published
What follows is my correspondence with Nichola K Smith:
Question 1.
”Why do so many amateur cyclists overestimate how much training stress they can absorb?”
Constrained by Ourselves
Many athletes unconsciously compartmentalise their disparate pressures and strains (let’s call them ‘stressors’). Relationship, work, alcohol, lack of sleep, training, racing. Our bodies unfortunately, do not compartmentalise or differentiate – stress is just stress. Also our physiology don’t distinguish between mental and physical stressors. Neurobiology is just biology. Too many layers of stressors results in a compaction of allostatic load. Performance, happiness and wellness will inevitably decline if behaviour rapidly alter.
Amateur cyclists tend to make these mistakes because there is no mechanism in place to stop them. Professional cyclists, in contrast will have many pairs of watchful eyes on their health/performance dashboard – power, HRV (heart-rate variability), weight, sleep, nutrition, injuries, illness etc etc.
They are effectively, in that sense, saved from themselves.
