FT Questions....

[Scott Stevenson]

Apologies in advance if this has already been answered.

How would one differentiate between under recovery by under eating or under recovery by central nervous fatigue?

I have just finished week 3 of a tier 1 blast and am so relieved at having two rest days in a row as I feel physically exhausted. I am aiming to be in a slight deficit but nothing substantial (looking leaner but weight has held this week). I am only looking to drop around 2 kg's over the course of the next 4-6 weeks so am not pushing a severe deficit. Am also utilising a nutrient timing approach as outlined in the book.

Symptoms are simply feeling very physically tired, legs feel like the forces of gravity have increased. Other than that I feel ok mentally, sleep and appetite are fine and the log book took an ass whooping again this week .

My plan is to blast for a further week while being open to swapping some fats out for carbs on rest day meals if lifts stall at all.

Anybody have any advice/ recommendations as to what they would/have done in this situation?

I think you're asking this question under the premise that the there's a clear and substantial separation between those two contributors to poor recovery.

Chances are, you could start eating in a substantial surplus and feel better and perhaps pull out of this feeling of exhaustion (but it would take some time). In other words, I would imagine that if you had been eating in a substantial surplus during this blast, that you'd not be as wiped out right now...

While it's the nervous system that's taxed immediately by the training bout, this will manifest in the autonomic nervous system (ANS), the endocrine system and the immune system, with the ANS playing a role in sleep, digestion, etc and control of energy homeostasis. So, eating at a deficit means some perturbation of the endocrine system (think everything from leptin and ghrelin to thyroid output to perhaps even a lowering of testosterone), as well as a shift in the ANS towards sympathetic drive liberate fatty acid stores. On the other hand, taxing training that stresses the CNS, also stresses the ANS and it's actually been hypothesized that there are sympathetic and parasympathetic versions of the overtraining syndrome (OTS), and it seems from the little data that are out there that OTS manifests differently when brought on by endurance training vs. resistance training...

So, for you, it could just be that your propensity to slip towards and overreached state is highly increased by eating at / near a deficit (perhaps more so than for other folks). This probably is a function of your overall activity level, total caloric intake, of course, the extent of the deficit and how lean you are...

So, you could test this by eating up for a couple days (and sleeping as much as possible) and seeing how you feel. It's also OK to skip a day of training during FT. (For some, this throws off the weekly training pattern, so it's not favored.) There are some data suggesting that toggling your dietary intake in this way (eating up for a few days every few weeks) actually improves fat loss outcome (e.g., preservation of fat-free mass), so I'd not be afraid to do so (even if just for the "sake of science").

-S