How Stress Hurts Your Gains and What to Do About It

I’ve been a personal trainer for over 30 years, and during that time, I’ve helped hundreds of people achieve their fitness, physique, and health goals. Invariably, this involves creating effective training programs, teaching good exercise technique, using motivational strategies, and providing bespoke dietary advice.

However, despite my decades of knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm for my job, there is only so much I can do to assist my clients. That’s because, in reality, I only have direct contact with them for a few hours a week.

So, while I can do my best when we’re together, it’s up to my clients to do THEIR best when we’re apart. After all, I can only tell them to eat right and get plenty of sleep. It’s up to them to do it.

Another factor that can affect my client’s progress is their stress levels. In some cases, stress is the hidden enemy that hurts your gains.

In this article, I reveal how stress affects your results and what you can do to make it less impactful.

What Is Stress, and Why Is It Bad?

Stress is a natural part of life. In fact, stress and our reaction to it can be very positive. That’s because of something called the flight or fight response. This stress response is hardwired into your brain. It is one of the things that made early humans so good at surviving dangerous situations.

How? Good question!

Fight or Flight: Your Stress-Related Superpower

Imagine you are walking through a forest, hunting and gathering food, just as our ancestors did. But, instead of finding some tasty mushrooms to pick or a small deer to trap, you stumble into a hungry tiger.

Suddenly, you go from hunter to hunted.

In that instant, the stress response triggers a host of reactions, equipping you with the tools you need to run or fight for your life.

These include dumping lots of glucose into your blood for instant energy, increasing muscle tension, stimulating your reflexes, and diverting blood away from internal organs and into your muscles. Newly energized, you can sprint or battle your way to safety.

Once you have escaped the danger, your body gradually returns to normal. Your heart and breathing rate decrease, your blood glucose levels decline, your muscles relax, and you’ll probably feel hungry and tired.

While hunting and gathering are no longer part of daily life, the stress response remains the same. However, instead of tigers and other threats to safety, we now have to contend with other sources of stress, most of which are psychological and emotional rather than physical.

Unfortunately, those stresses can be unrelenting. After all, you can’t run away from your boss, computer, or bank manager!

Consequently, many people are constantly experiencing the fight or flight response, even though there is no physical danger to worry about. Prolonged exposure to stress is a real problem.

The Effects of Prolonged Stress on Health and Fitness

Prolonged stress has many harmful effects. These include chronically elevated cortisol and blood glucose levels, increased free radical damage, and systemic inflammation. While these effects can hurt your gains, first, let’s look at how they could affect your health.

The health impact of prolonged stress includes (1):

• Cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes
• Digestive problems, such as gastritis, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel
• Weight gain or loss
• Sleep problems
• Skin and hair problems, such as acne, psoriasis, and eczema, and permanent hair loss
• Sexual dysfunction, such as impotence and premature ejaculation in men and loss of sexual desire in men and women
• Increased cancer risk
• Changes to the menstrual cycle in women
• Mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and personality disorders
• Memory and concentration impairment
• Increased risk of developing chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and autoimmune diseases

However, stress isn’t just bad for your health; it can put the brakes on your fitness and muscle-building progress, too (2, 3).

That’s because cortisol, the primary stress hormone, is catabolic. This means it’s responsible for breaking muscle tissue down. Elevated levels of cortisol interfere with post-exercise recovery and muscle growth.

Related: Anabolic Vs. Catabolic Metabolism – Definitions and How They Affect You

In addition, stress can affect your ability to make good nutritional choices. Everyone who has ever felt stressed knows that comfort eating is hard to avoid.

Stress may also lead to unhealthy coping strategies, such as alcohol and drug use, inability to sleep, and other factors that will undermine your workouts. In short, prolonged stress can undo many of the benefits of regular exercise.

Stress is often hard to avoid, but you may be able to control your response to it. You’ll find some of my favorite stress-beating strategies in the next section.

Stress-Beating Strategies for Exercisers

Whether you want to protect your health or maximize your gains, getting a handle on stress is critical for your success. While stress can be hard to avoid, there are several strategies you can use to make it less impactful. There may also be ways to reduce stress levels in the first place.

While I don’t expect all of these strategies to work for all exercisers, you should find a few that you can use to reduce the harmful effects of stress.  

1. Better Time Management

A perceived lack of time is a leading cause of stress. Modern life is very busy, and many people rush from one thing to another from the start of the day to the end. While doing less is often impractical, organizing your time better means you won’t have to race from one task to the next.

So, look for ways to make your day more efficient. Are their tasks that you can combine, or can you delegate to someone you trust? Examine your day for wasted time and learn to use it more constructively.

Finally, take care not to overextend yourself by taking on even more responsibilities. It’s okay to say no if you are already feeling overwhelmed.

2. Avoid Procrastination

Many of the causes of stress are actually not worth worrying about. They live rent-free in our brains despite having little or no importance. However, if we let them hang over us, they can grow and become all-consuming. In many cases, the longer you put off confronting an issue, the more significant that issue seems to become.

So, don’t put off until tomorrow things that you can (and should) do today. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, sometimes you just need to grit your teeth and get it done. While whatever it is might not be pleasant, getting it out of the way sooner means less stress overall.

3. Avoid Known Stressors

Some stressors are easy to identify. They might be people, places, or situations. Either way, if possible and practical, avoiding these stressors can make your life much easier.

For example, I have cut certain people from my life because their dramas caused too much stress. While I may occasionally miss those people, I don’t miss the anxiety! Similarly, I avoid most social media and watching the news. I’ve also stopped working with some clients because they became sources of extreme stress.

While these things might not bother you, they do a real number on my mental health.

So, analyze your life and look for the things that cause you the most stress. If practical, consider eliminating them from your life. While not always easy, this step can do a lot for your long-term happiness and peace of mind.

4. Eat Healthily

It’s all too easy to forget about eating healthy when you are stressed. You may crave junk food because it provides instant gratification and makes you feel good – albeit temporarily. However, big doses of sugar and salt do nothing for your mental health. In contrast, it can make things worse by triggering feelings of shame or regret.

So, instead of feasting on foods you know are bad for you, eat as healthily as possible when you are under more pressure than usual. Those essential nutrients may make stress easier to cope with and less impactful.

5. Cut Down on Caffeine

Caffeine is a potent stimulant that increases mental alertness and energy. As such, many people consume caffeinated beverages several times a day. You may increase your caffeine intake when you are stressed, e.g., having not slept enough or to stimulate your brain.

However, too much caffeine can leave you feeling anxious and on edge and may make it even harder to sleep. Needless to say, this all makes stress even more problematic. I’m not saying you need to eliminate caffeine from your diet completely, but using less rather than more may help lower your stress levels.

Related: Caffeine Calculator – Are You Consuming Too Much?

6. Moderate Exercise

Exercise can help “burn off” the energy produced by the fight or flight response. However, habitual exercisers may over-exercise to beat stress, making things worse. So, while exercise can help you relax, this is not necessarily the best time for an intense workout.

Instead of exercising as hard as possible, try turning down the intensity and reducing the length and difficulty of your workouts. Aim to leave the gym feeling more energized than when you arrived. While this may seem counterintuitive, leaving some gas in the tank could help lower stress levels.

7. Spend Time in Nature   

Spending time in nature is one of my favorite stress-beating strategies. This is well-supported by research (4). Whether you call it forest bathing (or Shinrin-Yoku as it’s known in Japan) or walking in the woods, unplugging from technology and getting outside will do wonders for your mental and emotional health.

Don’t ruin the effect of being out in nature by using your phone. Instead, embrace your surroundings and enjoy the tranquility of being surrounded by trees, plants, and other wildlife.

8. Get Help

Some people are more prone to stress than others. Also, what stresses one person may not even register with someone else.

For example, I have no problem climbing sheer rock faces or strapping on a parachute and jumping out of a plane. However, ask me to go for dinner with people I don’t know, and I soon start to panic!

Consequently, not all sources of stress are easy to avoid or overcome, and you may not be able to control your reaction to the stressors in your life.

So, if you feel overwhelmed by stress, you should seek help and support. You can do this online, in person, or over the phone. Therapy can help, or you may just need to talk to a trusted friend.

Regardless, discussing your mental health is one of the best ways to address whatever is bothering you. As the old saying goes, a problem shared is a problem halved.

Visit the American Institute of Stress for help and support during times of stress.

Closing Thoughts

The causes of stress are not always easy to avoid. Many are part and parcel of living in the modern world. For example, technology can be a source of stress for some people, but it is integral to most of our lives.

However, while you may not be able to avoid all sources of stress, you may be able to control your responses to them. Eating healthy, not overusing caffeine or alcohol, moderate exercise, and talking to a trusted companion can all help.

But, if stress causes significant problems, professional help could be the best solution.

Regardless of the cause, too much stress can hurt your gains and, more importantly, your health. Therefore, I encourage you to do what you can to deal with it and make it less impactful.

References:

1. Rasheed N. Prolonged Stress Leads to Serious Health Problems: Preventive Approaches. Int J Health Sci (Qassim). 2016 Jan;10(1):V-VI. PMID: 27004066; PMCID: PMC4791152.
2. Stults-Kolehmainen MA, Bartholomew JB, Sinha R. Chronic psychological stress impairs recovery of muscular function and somatic sensations over a 96-hour period. J Strength Cond Res. 2014 Jul;28(7):2007-17. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000335. PMID: 24343323.
3. Stults-Kolehmainen MA, Sinha R. The effects of stress on physical activity and exercise. Sports Med. 2014 Jan;44(1):81-121. doi: 10.1007/s40279-013-0090-5. PMID: 24030837; PMCID: PMC3894304.
4. Lim PY, Dillon D, Chew PKH. A Guide to Nature Immersion: Psychological and Physiological Benefits. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Aug 18;17(16):5989. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17165989. PMID: 32824731; PMCID: PMC7459647.

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