Exercise induced Negativity

Are you eating enough?

I can relate to this OP. Had Covid a few times and it knocked me on my arse for a long time. Trying to get back in shape through a combination of gym, climbing and cycling. It’s really not working though. Just left aching, not the good workout ache, and immensely tired. To the point where large swathes of my weekend are spent sleeping. Mind is constantly foggy too. Really starting to get me down and no idea how to tackle it.

Perhaps you could cut out the commute on a couple of days, see if that helps?

TBH on the few occasions I cycled 5 days for commuting I was spent at the weekend.

Mtfu pills are the best, indeed the only, supplement to take in this situation.

Try two decent rides per week on top of the commute for 6 weeks and see if you feel progression. Mixed effort MTB rides perfect. Cut down on ale if you drink, and get the head down for some proper sleep.

Strictly Z1 on the commute - Smashing the commute is for casuls.

If you're still wasted beyond what seems normal then yeah there might be something up. But I think getting into a solid rhythm of quality rides is the prescription here.

A few have touched on it, but if it’s possible to can the commute for a few weeks, do it. At the weekend, ride for fun, and see if the positivity towards cycling changes. I was in a similar position after the kids, now 10 & 8, and my cycling has and still is significantly different due time commitments.

TBH on the few occasions I cycled 5 days for commuting I was spent at the weekend.

I think intensity is important here. Shifting between Z1 AND low Z2 should be OK, but if you're edging above that on a daily basis there's going to be a cumulative effect eventually.

*gets soapbox out*

Are you taking vit D?  those with an active lifestyle actually need more than sedentary folk and unless you eat loads of vit d containing food you will be short of it.

I used to get bouts of fatigue.  I was grossly vit D short it turned out.  Now taking Vit D I feel better than I have for decades

what form do you take it TeeJ?

Nope need to commute. Unfortunately work put a stop on people working from home last year, I was doing three days in the office and two at home, was much better for my energy levels.

I moved to a fitness watch to track my rides/etc a while ago, which isn't as easy to keep an eye on my HR as the cycle computer. I'll try going back to the bar mounted cycle computer and HR strap so it's right in front of me. Would help if I got up in time to take an easy commute in, and relaxing on the bike with cars whizzing past is a bit of an artform! I'd guess it usually is around Z3. (

Not a big drinker so not that. Get your point about MTFU pills - I've not been riding regularly outside of commutes.

Incidentally, sometimes when I have done nothing but low effort commutes, my legs still feel tired, but there's plenty in the tank for a harder ride.

Will have a look at vitamin D.

Thanks.

The load your body will put up with will largely depend on what you have done in recent weeks, comparing now to years ago or even months ago won't likely be a valid comparison.

If you want to do high end effort rides outside of commutes, as above, you need to make those commutes easy... At least in the first month or so of introducing the high end efforts.

Don't overload on high end effort days when starting out, keep it to one or absolute max two days a week. With the likes of Zwift, it's too easy to get drawn into racing most days of the week, but when your body isn't used to that stress there's a massive risk of overtraining.

Personally I take a multi-vitamin including 14mg iron and 4000UI of Vit D daily, often have yeast flakes with evening meal (vit B) but I need to order a new jar of daily vit B tablets.

You should take k2 with vit d. Pushes the calcium to where it belongs and not in the arteries

From my experience of episodes of CFS, a sugar called ATP helps recovery along with an expensive magnesium supplement (not the mg you get off the shelf in boots for example). I can’t remember the science behind this but Google is your friend here and there may be some relevance to the OP

Time to change your outlook?

Measure your ride in smiles rather than miles.

what form do you take it TeeJ?

some basic cheap pills.  How much of its positive effects are in my head is of course a good question but I underwent a whole battery of tests to find the cause of my fatigue and I was at 20% of "normal" levels of vit d.  Everything else normal

Some of the effects are pretty certainly physical.  I was getting night sweats.  they have stopped

One thing that hasn’t changed is the cycle commuting, 50 miles a week. Again not much by some standards but legs never feel fresh.

If I cycle to work every day (10 miles with hill a day/50 miles a week), I'm pretty tired in my legs by Friday.

I would suggest if the commuting hasn't changed and the legs are tired all the time something else is going on. I was probably at my fittest in cycling terms in my 40s when I was commuting 20 miles a day 4 days a week in a fairly hilly city (Glasgow).

Unless you are training for a specific target Why do the hard cardio sessions? Maybe mix up the commutes? Make Tues/Thu very easy - as far as traffic conditions allow. Go a bit harder Mon/Wed/Fri.

I don't use Strava or any pulse readings. If I feel my legs are tired I ease off. This week I went for a swim instead of a ride one day because my legs were a bit heavy. Not an option for a 5 day a week commute of course.

A mild feeling of tiredness is not unpleasant, a sign the body is getting fitter. Being washed out means either you are overdoing it or there s some underlying issue. All IMO of course.

Was very similar in feeling always tired on the bike. I was racing and being coached in a competitive “arena”. I honestly would get on the bike some days and my legs were like pieces of lead, no power and it felt awful. Got to the point were I was dreading every ride.
Like you I was commuting and had no choice but to ride in (wife had only car).
In the end I stopped racing and my only riding was the odd zwift session and social weekend ride.
Now I get my cardio hit out of doing spin sessions. I’m lucky in that these are really well run fun places to go. I make sure I’m sleeping well and eating as much fruit and veg as I can. I notice the lethargy when I’m not eating as well.
With me I didnt think there was a single supplement I could take to fix things. I just had to work out a lifestyle that I enjoyed, keeping me reasonably fit but most of all, having fun on the bike.

An option for you could be to extend the morning rides and use them as the cardio effort? Ditch other cardio sessions?

Following with interest, as I feel like I'm tired all the time at the moment too. Could just be the winter - vit D was going to be my suggestion too (Vitabiotics D3 here... Expensive but better for reasons I can't remember).

Iron is the other one. I should probably get back on those supplements, but again, the cheap ones are supposedly much less effective (to do with the way it's absorbed).

Diet would obviously be a better way to do this, but important to be realistic.

Much as I think commuting by bike is great for all sorts of reasons, I would try a week off - no other way to get in? Bus, etc.

Check your iron too. I had quite low iron before covid. Then during lockdown we were accidentally pretty much vegan. I started needing naps every day, putting it down to the general weirdness/my dad dying. A year later I had a blood test & was prescribed iron in big doses (10 x what you can get over the counter). The difference was almost immediate in terms of general energy and sleep. Riding and not trailing behind the group in despair took a few weeks.

Crush 6 x 1000iu of vit D and mix with large gin or vodka.
Drink, relax, wake up next week.
Rinse snd repeat.

As someone whose riding took a battering when the kids were small and whose work gets in the way of regular rides for periods of time (mostly night ride mid week) I just keep the HR down (by feel not tech) and enjoy the riding.

The fitness can come back but Covid knocked me back I was getting some gym time as well as riding before and only really now trying to get back into the swing of that having dropped a volunteer role that was consuming a lot more time than it should have been.

I can feel rank whole riding but good riding buddies and a pub after always leaves a better feeling.

I get similarly drained after a couple of hours of MTBing so have decided to take a break from riding unless I feel really good. Seeing your thread made me realise I've felt on more of an even-keel recently and the key changes are:
- Vit D supplement for the last few weeks (as others have suggested);
- 15 minute yoga sessions almost daily, for the last 1-2 weeks;
- Reduction in my sugar intake.

Hopefully you find some of that useful.

I did a 100 miles a week commuting for several years

You feel it by the weekend, I still managed Sunday rides most weekends
If I was doing a race or a trip away I'd quite often go by train on the Friday to save the legs.
Looking after yourself is key,
Eat hearty breakfast, porridge + berries etc
Sleep- early to bed, especially few days before weekend race/trips
Yoga or whatever stretching routine, hamstrings will thank you.

As for post ride blues.... Almost always get this after a weekend of riding /racing, it feels just like a comedown to me: massive surge of endorphins leaves you my brain expecting more + fatigue = grumpy kimbers

Eat/rest well, do some yoga

Food!! (also quite possibly vitamins/ supplements, but food is what I know).
I've learned for myself that if I do a fairly heavy* cardio workout, I obviously need to eat something reasonably sharpish when I'm done; but I also need to keep topping up periodically afterwards. Most obviously I occasionally really struggle to get my head together later the same day, and sometimes wake up in a foul mood the next morning for no reason I could work out.
Basically it came down to blood sugar levels being too low in the hours/ half day post-workout, and needing to top them up with snacks, a decent dinner (and pudding) and so on.

*"heavy" kinda varies though. When I was in shape it was a 100k ride, now it's a 45 minute run; but broadly it's just a case of checking in with yourself, and working out if you need a banana/ toastie/ something else afterwards

Basically it came down to blood sugar levels being too low in the hours/ half day post-workout, and needing to top them up with snacks, a decent dinner (and pudding) and so on.

This will get poo-poohed by some, but a recovery drink (protein/carbs) is a great way to recover from that drained feeling, and you can eat normally after that. It kills the munchies and makes me feel better quickly.

But make your own, as it's sodding expensive otherwise. I can send you a spreadsheet for calculating ingredients and where to buy them.

I would suggest if the commuting hasn’t changed and the legs are tired all the time something else is going on.

Kids.

It is as simple as that. Absolutely everything takes longer and is more stressful when you've got small kids. Mine are old enough to be self-sufficient now, but I can still guarantee that there will be stress sometime tonight. When kids are younger you use a huge amount more energy dealing with everything. It's easy to forget this when your kids have grown up, I think. There's also tiredness from not being allowed your own sleep pattern. and let's not forget the bugs that they bring in as well.

Keep the commuting going - that's almost certainly not the problem and if you do less riding, guess what's going to happen.

If you've spent 6 years doing 50 miles a week commuting (assume that means 10 x 5mile rides a week) then you have got very good at doing exactly that.
If you try to add to that - and you'll probably add to it with a recreational ride thats a lot harder is going to be a big extra effort.
e.g from 10 x 5miles changing to 10x 5miles mon-fri + a 20 miler on saturday morning is a massive increase. Especially if you are setting off at the pace you normally ride 5 miles at.

When I was in shape it was a 100k ride, now it’s a 45 minute run; but broadly it’s just a case of checking in with yourself, and working out if you need a banana/ toastie/ something else afterwards

It’s fueling to the requirements of the task in hand, you can’t just burn shed loads of calories and carry on business as usual 🙂

I always used to treat the commute as a pootle with the odd longer more hilly route dialled in that I would use the heart rate monitor/powermeter but generally mixed it up, blipping everywhere at max just ruins it for the fun weekend rides 🙂

Still though, now I find a hard cardio effort leaves me feeling completely zonked and prone to feelings of negativity later in the day and sometimes for an hour after getting up the next day.

After a hard ride*, I get home and am fine for about an hour whilst the adrenaline etc is still sloshing around. I clean the bike, put it away, shower etc. Then I crash big time, normally sleep on the sofa for an hour and can be very grouchy. I don't sleep very well that night either.

Pretty sure it's not lack of calories as I eat like a horse in between naps.

The next morning I can still be shattered.

No kids.

* 100 km road ride, having my arse handed to me by a bunch of fitter riders...

I have quite a lot to add on this but ultimately no conclusion. I have had exercise induced negativity (bordering on depression) for years. It is worse, perhaps obviously, when compounded by stress and alcohol. This year I've felt better than previously and having read a few posts, one thing could be vitamin D, but also I've been 14-16 hour fasting. This has an unexpected effect of feeling "flat" a bit like anti-depressnts are described. I don't feel super strong (but never really do) but also don't feel particularly low (like I can). Might coincidental. I try not to drink more than 3 pints ( its rarely more than 1 at home).

But mostly, it's about managing it.

Stay within your limits, little and often rather than big efforts.

Very similar situation and symptoms, have tried lots and lots of things, the latest has been to stop. Stop exercising apart from the odd run with my 7 year old. I stopped exercising in October. I am much better for it. Going to start back very gently around Easter, if symptoms start again I’ll stop. GP advice is all about keeping going / taking pills, however it 100% is making things worse. Hope you find out the magic solution and share as I really do miss being fit, but it’s coming at too high a price

I get this, but only in races.

My finishing position may play a factor 😂

Thanks for the replies, wasn't expecting as many saying they felt the same sometimes. Guess it came a bit unexpected when feeling like the urban/mtb ride I did on Saturday (based on how I rode in the past) shouldn't have been as especially demanding and mood was fine during the ride.

Not gonna stop exercising (spent a big chunk of earlier adult life not). Think I've literally underestimated how little cardio exercise I've done lately. I've been trying to fit various forms of exercise together (inc strength and skills based exercises) for the past few years, slowly getting better at it, but still make mistakes which result in things like this happening, or minor strains, or even just catching illness from kids or colleagues, putting things on hold for a week or two, or more.

Diet is okay, we aim to eat healthily, usually do, but now with kids (yes them again), convenience often rears its ugly head. And I do have a sweet tooth partial to a biscuit and cake.

a recovery drink (protein/carbs) is a great way to recover from that drained feeling

Post-exercise pint of milk works wonders for me.

I moved to a fitness watch to track my rides/etc a while ago, which isn’t as easy to keep an eye on my HR as the cycle computer. I’ll try going back to the bar mounted cycle computer and HR strap so it’s right in front of me. Would help if I got up in time to take an easy commute in, and relaxing on the bike with cars whizzing past is a bit of an artform! I’d guess it usually is around Z3. (

Lose the number crunching. Just ride your bike gently when you commute and ride it how you feel like at the weekend.

Opinion only but I don't get the need to log everything it sucks the joy from simple things. It really doesn't s matter if you are faster or slower just enjoy it.

Also I don't think dt78 was saying stop permanently just take a break if you excercise every day when do you recover?

Diet is okay, we aim to eat healthily, usually do,

Healthy food does not mean you are eating what you need.

Also stop blaming your kids it's lame.

Try different excercise. Punch bag will have you dying on the floor in 15 minutes leaving loads of time to chill and eat proper