Well, now we’re just haggling over price. 
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Yea but, it’s like a pack of gum vs a new Mercedes lol
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Abe, I’m sure you don’t notice this, but you habitually dismiss data and viewpoints that disagree with yours. I’ve seen it here and on several other discussions on this forum.
You hold some very categorical, extreme points of view… and when presented with counterarguments, or studies and data that refute your original statement, you either dismiss the data/argument or disqualify the person making it. In the quote above, you go back to “there’s no data” despite the fact that you were JUST GIVEN data.
I hope it’s obvious that I mean this as constructive criticism: I think you’re missing the benefit that you’re apparently seeking, which is to understand (and hopefully learn from) others. But somehow in your mind you’re always right, even though you nicely say that you know you might not be.
Hardly anyone will agree that “life stress is a fad/myth” and it’s correct to “completely dismiss its significance”, OR that there’s nothing out there but anecdote and no hard data. Both of those are, as far as current science has been able to test/theorize, flat-out wrong.
All stress is stress. The body DOES suffer physiological effects from stress, fatigue, and trauma (hereinafter, collectively “stress”) regardless of whether that stress is physical, emotional, or mental. It’s not a popular or unpopular opinion… it’s a known fact, shown to be true (i.e. proven) many times in everything from sport science to psychology of trauma/rape victims.
Don’t argue it like there are two sides… there aren’t. If you think it’s not so, then you simply have something to learn.
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As a follow-up and a resource for all of us, The Body Keeps The Score is a remarkably well-written and valuable exploration of this exact topic: the effects of stress/trauma on the body AND mind, and on the person’s life, and how to heal/improve. Highly recommended.
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Or to put it another way, these are distinctions without a difference. Emotional/mental processes are physical/physiological processes. Conceptualising these as two distinct realms is a somewhat useful fiction that breaks down as soon as you start to look much beyond the surface, because the mind is essentially embodied, and deeply entangled into all the processes of the body.
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Think of it this way:
–“Fight or flight” is the physiological response to stress–it doesn’t matter whether it’s incoming artillery, a fight with your spouse, having to make a decision with potential bad outcomes under a high degree of uncertainty. It’s all the same CNS/hormonal responses–adrenaline, serotonin, cortisol, etc. The “level” of that response will vary, but it’s all the same biology/physiology.
–The evolutionary “benefit” of fight-or-flight is to enhance neuromuscular responses to danger–your hominid ancestors were able to run a little bit faster on the savannah when they saw the lion, even if they hadn’t preloaded with 90 g of carbs.
–Those responses can become depleted if they’re used repeatedly without sufficient rest–even if you address energy system/hydration needs between seeing lions, you won’t run as fast when you see the 4th one as you do the first.
–As others have said, there is a vast literature in animals and humans on the effects of chronic stress on these systems. There’s individual variation in the response to these stresses–not every soldier making it through the war in the same unit experiences PTSD, and not every person with the same level of work/family stress experiences it in the same way.
–So unless you’re postulating that strength/exercise performance is purely a function of energy systems at the level of skeletal muscle in terms of blood flow, oxygenation, and carbohydrate metabolism (all of which, by the way, are affected by those flight-or-flight responses), the idea that chronic stress brought on by experiences less than war can affect athletic performance is, scientifically, like saying “water is wet”
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Well, as @ibcoleman mentioned above…really this is haggling over price.
I’m not disputing any of the mechanisms you’ve described, and I don’t think I have anywhere previously. The question I have is, can every day, mundane stress that one experiences routinely and not out of the ordinary actually have this impact? I mean…is being a tad annoyed at a coworker impacting the ability of your body to adapt to training??
I’m genuinely not trying to be obtuse or argumentative. But proof that systems are linked is not proof that any and all stress stimulus can overload the system and derail training. I’m at heart a deep skeptic (clearly), and just havent seen this shown anywhere.
Well since no one is arguing this point, it is a bit of a strawman.
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Well, perhaps we should be more specific about what “work stress” is then. Is it someone eating your yogurt in the communal fridge, or is it carrying people out of burning buildings for 10 hours straight?
You’re making the same error you criticized others for on another infamous thread. “Proof that systems are linked is not proof that any and all stress stimulus can overload the system and derail training” should have “in all individuals”. There is inherent individual variability–just because being annoyed at a coworker doesn’t effect you doesn’t mean that it couldn’t in someone else. One episode of being annoyed is not the same as 3 months of being annoyed, or being annoyed and then having something else hit.
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That’s fair.
Still though. I feel like making the claim that work stress of someone at a desk job is derailing training is a bit like saying someone won the Tour because they had titanium stem bolts. Anywho, obviously this isnt going anywhere productive, I’ll stand down lol.
Because there is nothing in between those points on the “work stress” spectrum…just those two types of stress?
My current work stress involves trying to close a multi-million dollar supplier agreement with a potential major customer, planning for an upcoming trade show, dealing with incompetence at our factory and corporate office and the potential sale of the company (to name just a few of the headlines)…as someone whose wife is very much in need of constant health coverage, I can assure you that all of the above adds a whole lot of work stress to my life.
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This is the whole thing, though. Doing hard things, including training, is not just physical. Intensity takes concentration. If you’re stressed out from work or personal challenges, you’re going to have a harder time concentrating. It seems like you acknowledge this. Does this lack of ability to focus your efforts to push through the pain compromise your muscles’ ability to do the work you’re asking of it? Maybe not. But if you’re constantly stressed out at work and unable to summon the focus to complete workouts at the intensity required for improvement, that’s going to impact your fitness, or progress. Maybe everyone else on here is better at training than I am, but I’ve bailed on more than one workout because I couldn’t muster the mental energy to push through a set of over-unders or other very hard intervals.
If you agree with this part but are looking for solid proof that work stress affects muscles or bone mass or something, then there have been a lot of posts that seem to have missed the point.
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I 100% do, that was never something I’ve questioned. It’s the central nervous system impact and derailment of training specifically due to that I’m skeptical of.
What about the impact of life stress on sleep? Wouldn’t that affect recovery and adaptation in a very direct way?
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At the far ends, I agree. The ability to keep water in, not have to stop to pee, is something I see in a married couple who are both endurance athletes. I’ve tried the sodium/electrolytes, tried the creatine, all in efforts to hold on to the hydration longer, but they just don’t do much compared to people made to do what I’m trying to do.
One would also think that the speed part of the endurance cycling equation would end up with really defined, strong looking legs. Nope. I mean, in my case, yeah - I have what I’m told are great looking, strong, legs … they aren’t great for endurance speed though. Maybe I was supposed to be a sprinter?
(Edit: this was in response to endurance athletes being a high-level of genetics vs. training)
You have repeatedly argued that stress has no physiological impact:
And you also tend to dismiss arguments by distraction, or moving the goal posts, or setting up strawman arguments. For example:
No one was saying that “thinking about work” negates training stimulus – in fact, negating/counteracting training stimulus had never even been mentioned – so you’re knocking down an argument that wasn’t made.
Here you are downplaying the anxiety someone might suffer, both by calling it mild and by dismissively presuming that getting something done on time (some generic “report”) is unimportant. When something like that can get you fired, and maybe you have a bunch of debt and three kids and are paying for college, maybe that report is REALLY important.
Or maybe your desk job involves little motion but a ton of EMOTION: clinical psychologists, family therapists, and many others can speak to that. I spend a great deal of my work time sitting, counseling families on major issues like family conflict, sale of the business, and dozens of others, and I often leave my desk absolutely wiped out. And yes, it’s physiologically harder to push through a threshold workout after a hard day at work.
Again, being dismissive of what might cause others stress. How can you possibly state something like that and not realize just how incorrect/incomplete it is? Sure, there are desk jobs with very low complexity and very low stress. But to presume that ALL of them are so? Absurd.
Again, conveniently dismissive to minimize the arguments against yours by equating “life stress” to “being a tad annoyed at a coworker”.
And the last example I’ll quote, in the bolded text: you generalize to make the counterargument sound extreme and ridiculous. No one said (and likely no one would ever say) that “any and all stress” can OVERLOAD the system and DERAIL training. That’s absurd. So of course, when stated that way, the argument counter to yours is ridiculous and you are right. Convenient.
I’ll accept at face value that you’re genuinely not trying to be obtuse or argumentative. However, you are accomplishing both, because you are using argumentative/debate tactics to try to “win” against counterarguments instead of genuinely examining them to see if there may be something from which you can learn.
You are not acting like a skeptic (one who is slow to believe and ready to question) but like a disbeliever: you are convinced of something and nothing moves you from that position. Skepticism is healthy, but you are taking it too far. Despite EVERYTHING that has been said/shared/shown to show you that your belief is incorrect, you have not moved an inch.
You are doing yourself a disservice.
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Well, I guess you have seen and agree with at least one explanation as to why it would matter.
There are also some papers people have linked that might also provide some explanations. Normal life stress may not have a direct impact on your central nervous system, but it does raise the level of stress hormones, and there’s quite a bit of research that suggests there’s a negative correlation between stress hormones and performance (based on a quick search, not a comprehensive review of the literature, so grain of salt, I guess).
I don’t remember seeing anyone argue that there is an impact on central nervous system, mainly just arguing against your initial opinion that “Life stress is a fad/myth”.
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I made the implicit argument above that “normal life stress” is experienced first at the level of the CNS, which then evokes the hormonal response. I also did a quick search, and there’s a fair amount of literature (that I can’t judge in terms of quality) about the effect of “CNS fatigue” on muscular performance, usually in the context of weight lifting, through effects on neurotransmitters as well as hormonal effects.
Abe is still wrong, though. 
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Dang. I missed that one. There are a lot of posts to go through.
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