145: The Pitfalls of High Volume Endurance Training

0:06Nick Bare:Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is titled, working title, The Pitfalls of High Volume Endurance Training. The pitfalls. Now, typically, we're talking about the benefits, the performance amplification, the physical and mental, emotional results that you get from endurance training. But this episode is a little different. And I have some things that I want to share before we get into some of these pitfalls. Some of the pitfalls I'm going to share, one, energy deficiency, two, nutrient deficiency, three, muscle wasting and reduced strength, four, disordered eating, five, hormone disruption, and six, high risk of injury.

1:11Those are some of the things you can experience with high volume endurance training. and I want to preface this episode to say the intent of this episode is not to steer you away

1:22Nick Bare:from endurance training but to provide you information on what you may experience with endurance training especially when it comes to high volume. Now if you're just going out and running a few miles a couple times a week, or you're hopping on a bike here and there, you're jogging, you are incorporating cardiovascular conditioning for the health benefit, you probably are not going to be experiencing some of these pitfalls that I'll be describing in detail. This is more applicable for an individual or an athlete who is training in terms of high volume, if you are training for a marathon, if you are training for a triathlon, an Ironman, an ultra marathon, if you're going from race to race to race, or you just love endurance training and you're pushing it to the physical limits, you may experience some of these pitfalls.

2:31Nick Bare:All these things that I'm going to share today are things that I have personally experienced some of which I'm experiencing right now. As many of you know, I am in the depths of an Ironman triathlon prep. As of today of recording this episode, we are exactly 30 days out from Ironman, Arizona, which is November 16th, 2025. So for the last 14 weeks, I've been training a lot. anywhere from, you know, my prep started training roughly 16 hours a week. And right now I'm training anywhere from 20 to 22 hours a week. It's a lot of time on the bike. It's a lot of time spent on my feet running and there's a lot of time swimming.

3:30But it's just part of training for an Ironman triathlon, over the last seven years of my life, I have prioritized endurance training. And I've learned a tremendous amount along the way. But I want to share this.

3:50Nick Bare:I believe, I still believe strongly that a training program that incorporates both strength and endurance is superior. Superior for the short-term and for the long-term, for performance benefits and health benefits. A training program that balances strength and endurance is far superior than one that is just strictly strength and one that is strictly endurance.

4:32Now, many, but not all of these pitfalls

4:36Nick Bare:can be minimized by prioritizing nutrition and slowly increasing training volume. But these pitfalls that I'm going to describe, like I said in detail, they will be exposed. They will become more obvious and evident as training volume and intensity increases.

5:01Nick Bare:Now, the last thing, or one of the last things I want to share before we dive into some of these things, like I've mentioned, I believe the most optimal training program is one that balances strength and endurance. But with that being said, there is a time and place when you are pursuing a very specific goal that requires specification to the training. I've been saying this for years now. If I am training for an Ironman triathlon, I know that I have to refine and maximize my performance in the swim, in the bike, and the run. And that getting bigger and stronger in the gym might not benefit my swim, my bike, or my run.

5:48Nick Bare:So the training that I do has to be specific to the goal that I'm trying to accomplish. If my goal is to deadlift 700 pounds, well, I'm going to be spending more time in the gym deadlifting and I'm going to be spending less time swimming, biking, and running. This is applicable to all things in life. Specific goals require specification when it comes to the work required to prepare for that goal or that event. So when it comes to an Ironman triathlon or an ultra marathon or a marathon, an endurance focused event where you want to perform at your best, you want to reach your full potential. That requires some specific training.

6:41Nick Bare:And through that specific training, some of these pitfalls may become exposed. Again, I share this not to steer you away from endurance training, but to inform you so that you can incorporate some solutions along the way to avoid some of these pitfalls. So broad strokes, to have you thinking as I discuss some of these things. How do you solve some of these potential problems? One, proper nutrition. Proper nutrition in terms of quality and quantity of food that you're consuming and fuel. I talk about nutrition and fuel, what you're consuming throughout the day, day to day, and then fuel what you're consuming around these training sessions.

7:39Nick Bare:And that is specific to macronutrients, your protein, your fats, your carbohydrates, which equate to the sum of your calories and then micronutrients, vitamins and minerals. So proper nutrition is one way to avoid some of these pitfalls. another way take your easy days truly easy so that you can go hard on your hard days one of the ways you do this is by monitoring heart rate and perceived effort another way is to prioritize sleep also to include rest and deloads potentially having seasons of training, being an in-season versus off-season. There's a lot of people that jump from race to race to race.

8:32Nick Bare:I've seen some people's yearly race or competition schedule and it stresses me out because it's within 12 months, they're doing 15 races. And that puts you at risk for a lot of problems. not just energy and nutrient deficiency, but over training and burnout and injury along the way. So I'm a big fan of having seasons of training or in my case, I like to select one race or competition or physical goal or ambition that I pursue a year. At this point in my life, I put one goal on the calendar and go after that within the calendar year. And I believe that's a healthy approach. And then the last, but certainly not least thing that you can incorporate to avoid some of these consequences is strength training, cross training.

9:37Nick Bare:The beauty of strength and cross training is that it can prevent and alleviate a lot of these consequences from too much endurance training. So those are all the things that I wanted to share prior to jumping in to the first one, and that is energy deficiency. One of the things that I have experienced in many of these endurance preps that I've done is energy deficiency, feeling fatigued, feeling exhausted, brain fog, lack of mental clarity, lack of vitality. I would argue that almost more so in an Ironman prep than any other prep that I've done because the volume is so high. I experience energy deficiency more than say a marathon or even an ultra marathon prep.

10:48Nick Bare:I think my high rocks prep honestly was the best that I felt of all the preps I've done because it was a really strong balance of endurance, strength, and cross training, which that in itself could be another discussion and podcast episode. But energy deficiency, it is a pitfall for high volume endurance training. And I know so many endurance athletes who have experienced this, like I said myself included and I've experienced it in these large training blocks and I'm experiencing it right now in the depths of this Ironman prep like I've said it is just tired throughout the day because you're dedicating committing a lot of your energy to training to these big workouts yesterday is a good example yesterday was a 3 hour and 40 minute training day it was a 9 mile run it was some core strength work after that then a 90 minute VO2 max bike workout which is a big effort and then a 1 hour swim and then within that 1 hour I swam 3 ,000 yards it's a big day of training and a lot of my energy is directed to the workouts itself, which in honesty can sometimes feel selfish.

12:20Nick Bare:But it's for a specific goal for a specified duration of time. And endurance training doesn't just tax your muscles and your heart, which I think a lot of people think like when you go and put yourself through a workout, yes, it's a big tax on your cardiovascular system. It's a big task on the muscular system. They both need time to recover and rest. But it also is a huge stressor. It heavily stresses your central nervous system. And it does this in a few ways. If you've ever finished a big workout and the next day you wake up or maybe even the next two days you wake up and you feel just mentally and physically drained more so than just your muscles hurt, but like whole body depletion, that is most likely the result of an overtaxed central nervous system.

13:30Long endurance training sessions can affect your brain by reducing motor drive to muscles because they want to protect your body from complete

13:42Nick Bare:energy depletion. And brain chemicals like dopamine and norepinephrine become depleted, causing and resulting in mental brain fog. One of the biggest issues that affects the central nervous system is that cortisol increases and the body's stress response becomes blunted resulting in constant fatigue. This past weekend is a great example of this. From doing this for, like I've said, seven, eight years now, this type of training, I can pretty well and accurately predict the way my body is going to respond to the behaviors of training. this past weekend we had an iron man uh training camp in fredericksburg texas it's a big training camp so we arrived sunday as soon as we arrived it was a 16 mile run and it was about 2 p.m when we got started and it was hot it's probably 85 90 degrees fahrenheit and for uh middle of october that's still warm, that's toasty.

15:02Nick Bare:Exposed in a beating down sun. So that 16 mile run was taxing in itself. And then right after that, went into a one hour, 45 minute bike ride, climbing a lot of hills. Next morning, woke up, did a hundred mile bike in the hill country of the Fredericksburg, Texas area. It was a lot of climbing. I climbed roughly 5 ,400, 5 ,500 feet of elevation. I felt like I was climbing the entire ride, which was very taxing over the course of 100 miles. And then right after that, off the bike into a five-mile run. And then the next morning, a 10-mile run and got in the truck and drove home. That last workout was Tuesday morning, that 10 mile run.

16:00Wednesday, I was tired.

16:03Nick Bare:I was sore, but not overly taxed and fatigued. Thursday, woke up and central nervous system was just wrecked. The muscular system was wrecked as well. I mean, my legs, my body was tired and sore, but it was a deeper kind of more than tired exhaustion. I could tell that cortisol was elevated. My sleep was disrupted, which we'll talk about here in a little bit. My weight was increased. I could tell I had a lot of inflammation that my body was holding on to fluids. I was sitting five to six pounds heavier than I normally was. So that big effort did a number, not just on my muscles and my heart, but my central nervous system.

17:06Nick Bare:My central nervous system was taxed. Cortisol was extremely elevated. That is one of the results of these high volume endurance training efforts and blocks and programs and races and competitions, you might be experiencing chronic fatigue and brain fog and exhaustion. And it is because of a taxed central nervous system and elevated cortisol. Another reason for energy deficiency is just not consuming enough food and fuel. And this is one of the reasons that critical fueling and nutrition is so important before, during, and after workouts. It is a fuel, but also replenish. During big effort endurance training sessions, you are tapping into your glycogen stores.

18:10Nick Bare:Glycogen is the way that the body stores carbohydrates in the muscle and in the liver. So if I consume a big carbohydrate meal today or over the course of the day, I'm consuming a lot of carbohydrates. It's going to take roughly 24 hours to consume that meal, those carbohydrates, digest it, assimilate it, meaning breaking it down and then storing it. And the way that carbohydrates are stored is as glycogen in the muscles and in the liver. And your body can tap into glycogen stores to use for energy. And when you go into big workouts, especially endurance workouts, you're going to be tapping into your glycogen stores.

19:02Nick Bare:Well, if you don't fuel your body, if you don't replenish your glycogen, you are going to experience fatigue due to energy deficiency. It is so important to stay on top of nutrition in these high volume endurance preps. One of the things that myself and Dr. Kyle Gillette talked about in a podcast a few weeks ago was REDS, which is relative energy deficiency in sport. and this is when an athlete or an individual is burning more calories than they are consuming consistently for a long period of time. So what happens when you're burning more calories than you're consuming in the short term? You might lose a few pounds.

19:57Nick Bare:You might be a little tired. Your performance might not be as strong. But when you do this consistently over a long period of time, which you might not even be aware of. A lot of people who are experiencing reds don't even know they're under consuming. They're just not eating enough because they're not aware of it. But when you do this for a long period of time, it starts affecting more than just your energy and your performance. It affects or can affect your sleep. It can affect your mental processing. It can affect your endocrine and hormone production and maintenance. It can affect relationships.

20:41Nick Bare:It can affect your entire life. Reds is a big deal and a big issue with endurance athletes. And it's all because of an energy deficiency. You are deficient in energy because you aren't consuming enough nutrition or you're just taxing your body too hard and cortisol is consistently high. One of the reasons for energy deficiency as well could be from sleep disruptions, often during large training blocks. And I have definitely experienced this. When I'm really deep into a prep, my sleep often becomes pretty disrupted where I can fall asleep very quickly, but throughout the night, I'll wake up multiple times.

21:30Nick Bare:And this is because of a consistently increased level of cortisol, cortisol being a stress hormone. And when cortisol is raised and then it is elevated and it consistently stays high, that will wake you up throughout the night. It doesn't allow your body to actually rest. so it's like this this one-two punch of you're training at very high volumes and intensities and you're over training you're under recovering you might not be consuming enough calories to keep up with the energy demands so cortisol is off the charts it's it's raised and it's elevated and then on top of that because cortisol is high you can't sleep so now you have sleep disruptions that are just digging this deeper hole of an energy deficiency.

22:26Nick Bare:You keep digging that hole until you either rest or recover properly. Or in some cases, you start consuming more nutrition and calories and you dig yourself out of reds. But cortisol is something that should and needs to be managed in an endurance prep and build. And something that I think a lot of people don't take into consideration is other life stressors. So if you're in a high volume training block, that in itself is a stressor on the body. And if you're in a period of time in your life where you have a lot of other stressors, that could be family related, could be health related, it could be work related, it could be anything.

23:17Nick Bare:All of these stressors compound on top of each other. Your body has a really hard time distinguishing between one stressor and the other. It just feels the effects of stress. So if you're just stacking stress on top of stress, on top of stress, that compounds and your body cannot recover properly. And it digs you into a deeper energy deficiency. So I believe that energy deficiency, chronic fatigue, mental brain fog, being exhausted, tired, lack of motivation, drive, kind of all of these things that endurance athletes sometimes experience in a high training, high volume block can be managed by deloads in training, rest and recovery, managing cortisol, managing stress, staying on top of nutrition and caloric consumption throughout the day, but also around training itself before, during, and after, and then prioritizing sleep.

24:34Nick Bare:but if you don't prioritize all of those things and you're not aware of those things, it will lead to energy deficiencies or you're just digging this hole deeper and deeper and deeper. And the deeper you dig this hole, the more you tax your central nervous system, the harder and the longer it's going to take to fill that hole back up and get yourself out of that rut. Okay, the next pitfall that endurance athletes may be experiencing especially like I've said in these high volume training blocks that's nutrient deficiency as endurance athletes the type of training that we do it's it's harder on the body it excretes more vitamins and minerals because of the way that we We train our energy demands, sweat.

25:29We lose a lot of minerals through sweat. And our bodies just require more vitamins, minerals, micronutrients, macronutrients

25:43Nick Bare:to keep up with the demands, especially as volume intensity increases. so we created a product and i'm going to share this product with you right now that when this episode goes live which is october 27th we are launching this new product on october 27th it is called endurance essentials we created endurance essentials for endurance athletes because there are some vitamins and minerals. I'm holding endurance essentials in my hand right now, the bottle. There are some vitamins and minerals that most endurance athletes are deficient in, especially in high volume training blocks. And if you are deficient in these vitamins and minerals, it can lead to some of these pitfalls that I'm about to share with you and discuss.

26:51Nick Bare:A lot of these pitfalls that endurance athletes experience from nutrient deficiency is low energy levels, reduced performance, reduced recovery, disrupted sleep. It is compromised immune function. It is putting you in a compromised position of potentially risk of injury due to weaker your bones and muscle function. As an endurance athlete, as an athlete as a whole, when you have nutrient deficiencies, you put yourself in a compromised position, not just to underperform and not reach your full potential of performance, but of not feeling your best, of not feeling optimized with vitality and energy and good sleep and recovery and muscle function, all of these things.

28:01Nick Bare:That's why we created Endurance Essentials, a product that fills the gaps of what most endurance athletes are deficient in. One serving is three capsules. I'll go over the formula briefly and then dive into why and what. So vitamin D, 5 ,000 IUs, this is per serving. Iron, 25 milligrams. magnesium 300 milligrams zinc 15 milligrams and vitamin k2 125 micrograms so vitamin d low vitamin d status increases risk of stress fractures shin splints and delayed bone healing it also supports protein synthesis muscle contraction and energy production at the cellular level within the mitochondria. Vitamin D also regulates immune function, which is typically compromised during hard training.

29:05Nick Bare:I have personally found that when I go into these big training blocks, it's much easier for me to get sick or pick up something that is spreading, especially now that my daughter, Charlie, is going to school and she's bringing back something new every week. immune function is not just compromised from Charlie bringing all these things back, but because I'm in a big training block, hard training block. Vitamin D also regulates, helps to regulate hormones and recovery support. The thing about vitamin D is athletes who are training use more vitamin D that is accessible within the body for muscle repair and energy metabolism.

29:52So it's really important to supplement with vitamin D.

29:58Nick Bare:You can get it through supplements like endurance essentials, get it from nutrition sources, food, and sunlight as well. That's why it's so great to spend time in the sunlight because you can get vitamin D and replenish vitamin D stores from being in the sun. The second thing I want to talk about is iron. Iron is super interesting. So we know that women who train with a focus on endurance are at greater risk for an iron deficiency than men. And a lot of that is due to the menstrual cycle that women go through monthly. When you are deficient in iron, it is called anemia. Iron is lost through excessive sweat and endurance training increases the production and destruction of red blood cells.

30:54Nick Bare:And if the destruction rate is slightly greater than or outpaces the production, especially during heavy training blocks, well, then hemoglobin levels drop. Less hemoglobin means less oxygen delivered to the muscles, which means fatigue and poor performance. there's this very interesting and it's it's kind of minor but it's it's still super interesting when i heard about this for the first time i was like there's no way this is true but it is true it's called foot strike

31:32hemolysis i believe that's how it's pronounced hemolysis foot strike hemolysis and what that

31:40Nick Bare:is and what it means is when you are running, especially running because of the foot strike, probably don't get this from other type of low impact endurance training. Running is definitely the most taxing on the body when it comes to endurance training, just from like the repeated force of your foot striking in the ground, especially on hard surfaces. But what this foot strike hemolysis is, it's the repeated pound on hard surfaces from your foot. And that compresses blood in foot capillaries. And it creates enough mechanical force to actually rupture some red blood cells. And when those blood cells are ruptured, that's when hemoglobin levels drop and it affects iron levels.