Effects of Burnout on Physical Fitness
How Burnout Affects Physical Fitness, Strength and Endurance
I’m starting a new series called Burnout and Fitness. In this series I’ll be exploring the physical and fitness side of burnout.
I’ll talk about:
- the effects of burnout on physical fitness,
- the importance of exercise, fitness, strength and cardio for both general health and for dealing with burnout,
- how to regain fitness, strength and cardio after burnout.
- tips, programs and plans on how to train if you want to prevent or recover from burnout,
- how to support your body with nutrition, lifestyle practices and supplements
I’ll be also sharing with you my own personal journey of how I’m regaining my fitness after burnout, what I’ve learned, what helped me, what didn’t, the obstacles and challenges along the way, etc.
I have an athletic background and I still consider myself to be an athlete, so I might talk about fitness from a more athlete view and standpoint, but this doesn’t mean that the insights and lessons couldn’t be applied to your own fitness and well-being journey.
If you don’t want to miss any upcoming articles of the series, subscribe and get all new articles delivered to your email inbox the moment they are published .
Let’s get into the first article of the series!
Effects of Burnout on Physical Fitness
One of the most challenging consequences that burnout can cause us is the loss of physical fitness, strength and endurance.
The fitness loss that burnout causes cannot be compared to a simple sickness related loss.
Yes, at the beginning burnout puts us in bed for a certain time period — maybe for a few days or few weeks — but the toll on our physical body and fitness is often greater than we believe and imagine.
What makes burnout a very difficult and tough condition are not just physical problems, but physical problems combined with the mental and emotional ones. Physical symptoms and problems negatively affect our mental, emotional and spiritual health, which further worsen our own general health.
And then, after that initial break it then takes us a few weeks or months — depending on the intensity of burnout — to fully recover and overcome it.
I can speak from my own experience: after each small burnout episode I felt like I’d lost all my fitness. Going back to the gym, I felt like I had to start from square 1.
Before the burnout episode I could do 5 easy reps squats with 80kg (~175lbs) for 3–5 sets, after burnout just 3 sets of 5 reps with 60kg (~130lbs) felt heavy.
And it’s not challenging just because of the loss of fitness, strength and power that burnout causes, but also because of fear and decreased recovery.
Physical Recovery After Burnout
The process of physical recovery is very challenging, for multiple reasons.
1.First, because of burnout your energy levels, motivation and drive are very low.
You don’t feel like training and working out and you have to use a lot of willpower to push through that resistance and to make that mental override to go and workout, which can consume a lot of energy and further diminish your energy stores.
2.Secondly, due to burnout your ability to recover and regenerate after physical activity is diminished and limited.
Because of that you have to pay attention to how intensively and how frequently you exercise, work out and train: if you train too hard or too frequently, your body won’t be able to fully recover and you might end up falling into that burnout state once again.
3.The third reason is mental and emotional.
The fact that we don’t know the condition, the fear and anxiety if we’ll ever recover and be fully healthy again and how much we can exercise, train and push ourselves to become stronger but not too much so we don’t burn out. You might also lose the hope and trust in yourself, your body, mind and the power that you hold in ourselves to heal.
Our mind and emotions are very powerful tools and if they work against us, and if they work against us, they make our burnout condition and our ability to recover worse.
These factors make the process of regaining fitness after burnout very difficult and challenging.
How To Regain Fitness After Burnout?
I already wrote a newsletter where I talked about how to train if you suffer from burnout and
Here’s a quick summary of the article on how to train to overcome burnout.
1. Strength-Based Training
Strength-based training makes the body stronger as it doesn’t include as much volume so it’s not as taxing on the body’s central nervous system, which prevents from taxing the adrenal too much and so avoids burnout.
2. Improve Recovery
Incorporate in your daily routine recovery activities such as yoga, stretching, cold exposure, sauna, massage, mindfulness and meditation, floatation, etc. that will help your body recover faster.
3. Eat Clean and Healthy
What we eat has the biggest effect on energy to work out and recover. Eat clean, wholesome foods, choose healthy carbs, get enough protein from good, quality sources and include enough good, healthy fats. Avoid high-sugar, high-inflammatory foods (vegetables oils and fast food) and foods that spike blood sugar.
4. Control Stress
Working out itself is a form of stress — good, hormetic stress — for the body and it will make it stronger, but if you have additional stress in your life, it will be too much for the body to handle and you’re in danger of burning out.
Keep life’s stress and stimuli at bay and under control with mindfulness and meditation, joy, relaxation, fun, laughter and other parasympathetic activities.
I’m working on a full guide where I’ll teach you more about how to regain fitness and strength after burnout, so make sure you’re subscribed to this newsletter so you don’t miss it!
Patience, Consistency, Trust and Belief
If you’ve suffered from burnout and lost your fitness, you have to be patient: lost fitness after burnout cannot be recovered in a day or in a week.
Make a plan, be consistent, trust the process and believe in yourself and your body!
As your body will be getting stronger, you’ll be able to handle life in general and its demands better.
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Love and take care of yourself, forget about worries and enjoy life!
~ Jani
