How Stress Ruins Your Fitness
6/4/202635 min
Spencer and Oli explore how stress really affects fitness, recovery and running performance.
They unpack why stress isn’t just “in your head”, how everyday pressure can change your body, and why hard training can backfire when your system is already overloaded. From cortisol and sleep to Zone 2 runs, recovery, anxiety and allostatic load, this is a practical explainer on why runners need to think beyond miles, pace and workouts.
Because sometimes the thing stopping you getting fitter isn’t your training plan — it’s the stress you’re carrying into it.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpencer Matthews· Host0:00
Welcome to Untapped: The Extra Mile with me, Spencer Matthews And me, Ollie Patrick Indeed. We're here again. Today, we're talking about stress.
Oli Patrick· Host0:08
Oh.
Spencer Matthews· Host0:09
I think firstly, what would be good would be to define stress.
Oli Patrick· Host0:13
Yeah I think, you know, I hear the word stress and I think bad sleep, r- mind racing, nail biting.
Spencer Matthews· Host0:22
You know, how do I fix this problem as soon as possible? I think, you know, arguments with my wife. I think, uh, I think, um, you know, delays on product production. Uh, I think of all kinds of things that irritate me.
Oli Patrick· Host0:39
Yeah. Now, that's, that's a really classic sort of depiction of what people think stress is. People think stress is the negative stuff that weighs us down. I think the broader definition is we, we sort of don't wanna start with the word stress, we wanna think of pressures. Like, we all have pressures. You know, we have things that, that are expected of us. There's lots of different types of stress. There's, there's the stress of a hot room, there's the stress of a, a difficult emotional relationship, there's the stress of a chemical, there's the stress of an exercise session. So really careful- I don't, I don't mean to interrupt you. Please do But the hot rooms are just death.
Spencer Matthews· Host1:08
Like, like when you said that, I, I thought, "Ugh."
Oli Patrick· Host1:11
Until, until they become a sauna, in which case they are life.
Spencer Matthews· Host1:14
Yes, I know. But just, I, I, I was thinking more for sleep.
Oli Patrick· Host1:17
Yeah Like, I, I, I'd had a shocking night's sleep the other night, and it was just boiling and just horrendous.
Spencer Matthews· Host1:24
It's, uh, it's- It's a great example.
Oli Patrick· Host1:25
So that, that stress is talked about in a similar way to you having an argument