How To Tell If You're Training Too Hard (And What To Do About It)

Training, either Crossfit or physique, can be the best and worst action for your health.

Here's a typical scenario that I see on a weekly basis from the athletes that hire me to fix their metabolisms.

Individual X trains multiple times per week, some times twice per day and they eat a very healthy but low calorie diet. On top of their time at work, they have an above average stress level.  Throw all of this into a pot and you have some tired athlete with high cortisol. They visit their doctor who tells them that they have a hypo-thyroid (slow thyroid) and their Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) is very high. As a result, their MD wants to put them on thyroid medication.

Now I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on the internet but I know about hormones and exercise. Let's take a look under the "hood" and why I always recommend a TSH blood test.

Quality nutritional supplements can be very helpful as well.

Thyroid Stimulating Hormone is produced by the pituitary gland in you brain that then signals your thyroid, that butterfly sized gland, in your neck to produce both T3 and T4,

If T3 is not converted to T4 your brain will tell your thyroid gland to produce MORE TSH than normal to uptick the T3-T4 conversion.

But why doesn't anyone stop to ask why the T3-T4 conversion is sluggish or less than optimal? 

Why are thyroids burning out?

Why do most women need adrenal support supplements?

In my experience with athletes, there's four issues.

1. Poor diet high in trans fat, processed sugars and additives that lead to thyroid antibodies in the blood.
2. Thyroid cells becoming unresponsive due to high cortisol caused by stress.
3. Small Intestional Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)  due to a high carbohydrate or high stress diet.
4. Long term caloric restriction causing low blood glucose levels.

Stress is not just a fight at work. Stress can manifest through a variety of functions such as the aforementioned intense training, poor sleep, poor diet or reliance on sugar and caffeine.

High cortisol levels cause your thyroid receptors to be in overdrive. Your body will continually pump out TSH but your receptors don't receive the TSH.

How else can you explain a recreational exerciser who works 40-50 hours a week yet exercises twice per week but still has a hypo-thyroid?  It has nothing to do with exercise but likely their lack of calories and high stress levels.

Is there a link between low carbohydrate diets and thyroid problems?

Studies do show a direct link between low carbohydrate intake and drops in T3. Some link the drop in T3 to a lack of incoming glucose.  Yet studies show that these are very low carbohydrate diets over an extend period of time.

Might the issue actually be with total calories over that period of time?  While it is true that your body can produce glucose from protein and fat, it's a slower, less volume process so I wouldn't rely on protein and fat to help my thyroid.

Hashimotos And Exercise Recovery

Just so we’re all on the same page. Let’s define what hashimotos is in terms of training. Hashimotos describes a condition where your thyroid is deemed "under active". That is literally all the common medical practice agrees on. In a more functional sense hashimotos can exist, your thyroid can be under active, for a variety of reasons ranging from long term stress (stress eats up T3) to a lack of sleep (REM cycle is essential for proper hormone function) to thyroid impairment causing less thyroid hormone to get used to to even gut problems. After all, about 30% of your thyroid is made in your gut.

Most of the women I consult with about their underactive thyroid come from a place of TOO much exercise, usually after the Crossfit season for a figure or bikini competition. You can enter a competitive stretch with an already weak thyroid and due to the combination of too much training and too little food, you further down regulate your thyroid.

Since your thyroid is insanely sensitive to stress, hard training is going to use up most of your readily available T3

NOTE-We have bound thyroid hormone which is a total number, this is unusable by the body. We also have free T3, free thyroid hormone that the body can use. These numbers are different with the free number being typically lower.

Training selection needs to be scrutinized. I’m on the opposite side of typical thinking, I want you to perform more single limb and isolation exercises since they are less central nervous system intensive. They also are going to cause less inflammation, within reason, than a heavy load like a deadlift or chin up.

I’m not suggesting your avoid those exercises but if you’re going to use more full body training you’ll need to scale back with your volume.

Exercise has actually been shown to improve hashimotos disease but these were largely done in folks who are NOT your hardcore crossfit or figure competition athletes.

If you’re suffering from some degree of hashimotos and training the first step is to scale back. Take a few days off then go back to training 2-3 days per week while you follow some of the anti inflammatory advice below.


Hashimotos, Figure, Bikini, Figure, Crossfit

Nutrition is truly at the heart of this issue to optimize our thyroid function.

Hashimotos is an autoimmune disease which is present with elevated inflammation.

While a traditional competition diet tightly manages carbohydrates, higher calories foods and favors an overall control of calories, more of the same isn’t the answer.

1) Control your carbohydrate intake, aiming to keep your sugars low. Drastically dropping your carbohydrates was a contributing factor to your hashimotos so we want to control your intake but feed you enough to train. Take a look at your reverse dieting article for more specific guidelines.

Keeping it easy, eat your carbs post workout and with dinner. That’s it for direct sources excluding fruits and vegetables.

2) Eat anti inflammatory fats 2-3 times per day. Avocados, olive oil, fish oil, and coconut oil are just a few of the fats I prefer for managing inflammation.

3) Supplement with fish oil, circumin and adrenal support to help your body manage stress more efficiently.

How To Keep Your Thyroid Working, Your Cortisol Low And Your Training On Point

1) Pay close attention to your training sessions and volume. Make sure to throw in extra rest days.

2) Use refeed or cheat days multiple times per week.

3) Supplement with The Physique Formula Adrenal Support

I'm not going to lie to you, if you're training hard then you need to recover BETTER.

And that's why I've created an unique blend of adaptogenic herbs, all natural nutrients that can enhance muscle recovery and optimize your hormones.

You can check it out by clicking here

Or you can watch the video below