The wife and kids and I went to our first drum circle at a local gluten free restaurant (Ohana Cafe if you’re ever near Clearwater, FL) and I think we ‘re going to buy some drums for us and our four younger kids. It’s easy and doesn’t require anything but a semblance or rhythm. One day I’ll take piano back up but that’s just a dream right now.

Robb, I don’t have any biochemical things to share with you but I’m a techie and so here’s something back atcha: for typing faster than 14 wpm (and thus saving time for sleep and fun) get a speech to text program and a good quality headset. You’ll suddenly rocket to about 90 wpm if not 120. No kidding. Takes some dialing in, but not much and you’ll be off and running quick like a bunny.

If you use Windows 7, there is a built-in speech to text product: go to Start and type “Start speech recognition”. Make sure you have your headset or a mic plugged in.

If you use Mac, you can probably get a product like Natural Speaking by Dragon. I’d be shocked if they don’t have a Mac product and their stuff is really refined now.

Hope that helps you help the world (and yourself) more!

Thank you sooo much for turning me on to Wendler 531. I have been doing CFSB and felt it was way too linear for me.

Quick Q: do you think 531′s big compound lifts (squat, bench, DL, press) could be combined with CF mainsite WODs as the accessories / metcon?

Still 3 days on – 1 off – with days 1 & 3 including waves 1 & 2 of Wendler (days 5 & 7 would be waves 3 & 4).

Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Cheers, Chris

I can’t thank you enough for discussing adrenal fatigue. I have probably had a mild form of this for quite some time and recently (last 4 months) it has definitely increased in severity due to huge amounts of stress. I had no idea what was wrong with me. I thought I may have had chronic fatigue syndrome or low blood sugar but you explained EXACTLY how I am feeling.

Interesting you talk of Yin and Yang energies – i did an article for my blog on the same topic (I live in a very “alternative” lifestyle area) in relation to overtraining etc.

http://crossfitwestcountry.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/recovery-energy/

These days I’m focusing on my Oly career and surfing – if I have energy left then I might “play” at some gymnastics or metcon work, but it’s not on my priority list at present.

Guts have calmed down – you were right about focusing on sleep, stress and food. Knock out all even slightly problematic foods, do lots of fun stuff/chilling out and sleep whenever you can… oh, and take your Vit-D3 – this is how you beat autoimmunity!

Nice schedule by the way

I’m not trying to be a dick but high-drama clients an make you want to kill yourself.

You have inspired me on all this brother. This is why our programming rolls out in blocks for our folks, trying as best we can to undulate the volume. That, and we have different programming for beginners, intermediate and advanced. Where i really see the wheels fall off the wagon is when sleep gets impacted. Either via training or life commitments. Oh yea, and CrossFit never has an off-season…

Increasing work capacity is a misunderstood concept that can help many adrenal fatigue folks. Of course initial recovery from an acute AF event should be primarly adressed.

Most AF complaining folks are bitches.. Instead of a completely passive aproach to recovery I prefer activly pulling yourself out from that black hole, through sound nutrition and supplementation and wise training choices. Most just prefer to rest it off…

Ido.

Family friend just had an emergency appendectomy. She is 13 yrs old I believe. Do you have any experience with this stuff? Our good friend google seems to have a few hits in relation to: celiac, gluten, transglutaminase etc. I am totally unfamiliar with this subject and just wondering if you have ANY input. Thanks my friend.

Ben Wheeler

In the CF world I think we are great at telling people to “just do it!!!” but it’s hard when you get someone who has so many other issues causing their adrenals to fail, and knowing who to send them to and where to start nutritionally and even physically with exercise,. I would love to see more posts on this!

From somebody who I think went that step further then you and went into complete adrenal meltdown i can tell you its a complete nightmare and as you mention a longterm problem to deal with. When i got sick initially I was essentially bed ridden for a week. Even getting up to cook was really taxing. But all i could think about at the time was getting back training. It wasnt untill after i got back training and had a minor relapse that i realised how crazy my priorities had got at that point.

And that leads me to my point. Adrenal fatigue/Overtraining Syndrome is a symptom of messed up priorities, ego, lack of alternatives to work and training, and a lack of self confidence in oneself to just let go and take it easy.

If people are going to use paleo to drive themselves to complete exhaustion instead of for better health then its doing more harm then good.

14WPM?? You should check out Dragon Naturally Speaking. It’s a really slick piece of software that might help you decrease how much time you spend writing. Plus, you don’t have to be sitting down to use it so that basically translates to less time sitting in front of the computer screen!

I did some testing on it when I was working at the university and loved it. I’m a pretty fast typer, but we hooked up the president of the university with it and he was all about it.

All that said, I always go back to: Give it a shot, see if it works. We Don’t need gurus of any flavor, be they nutritional or political. We need folks to think for themselves, experiment and run with the results.

Thanks for the plug, mi amigo.

For those on the fence as to whether or not “adrenal fatigue” exists, it was first mentioned in the conventional medical literature since the 1920′s: http://drlowe.com/emailnewsletter/2009archive3.htm

Adrenals have a wide range of functioning levels, much like the thyroid. It is too bad that all too often conventional medicine falls into the simplicity of either the adrenals being completely broken, or completely fine. There’s many shades of grey…

Quite simply, it’s very close to an equation. Stress burns nutrients. More stress equals more nutrients burned. If one doesn’t get in enough nutrients and the stress compounds for long enough (work, kids, workouts, lack of sleep, stimulants, media, refusing to take time off, etc.), the whole system gets put behind the 8-ball and it takes a while to recover.

One of the reasons so many long-time CFers are tending towards more MEBB, 5/3/1, CA WoDs, etc. is that many of them inherently realize that too much long and/or hard metcon leaves them wasted for days…this is too much stress on the system, particularly the adrenals.

If anyone wants adrenal testing, my contact is easy enough to find here and in Robb’s post above.

Greg brings up an interesting point that I’ve wondered about myself. Dr. Sears hypothesizes that having a protein/carb ratio greater than 1 causes the body to produce more than an optimal amount of cortisol. I’d debate the exact ratio, but I wonder if there isn’t something to this idea. I was having trouble putting on muscle when I was using the zone prescribed amount of protein and a couple of months ago I upped my protein intake significantly while keeping carbs about the same (about 12 blocks/day). Since then, I’ve been having some of the symptoms of adrenal fatigue you described, particularly soreness.

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the relationship between the protein/carb ratio and cortisol production.

You may have someone closer to work with, you’d just need to research your area a bit.
cheers.

Quick question that has been on my mind: What do you think about the Barry Sears videos that have been posted on Crossfit (the event in Orange County)? I’m sure that you would rather have had Cordain there to speak — I’m sure that some of the stuff said was a little bit off in your opinion.

Thanks,
Steve

Miss you dude!

Looks like a pretty solid list, I’ve always been a little nervous about pro-hormones but I know folks use them consistently and to good effect. Would you go for the oral or the transdermal forms of Preg and DHEA? I need to track down a good doc in chico to check all these numbers for me. Too damn busy to order out and interpret my own blood work.

ALSO it activates the GABA receptors.

Taurine has helped a lot of my diabetics reverse their peripheral neuropathy faster (in addition to PALEO paleo paleo eating/living).

I put a bunch of info (do search ‘taurine’ from PubMed here coz I’m slo on posting:
http://drbganimalpharm.blogspot.com/2009/06/show-me-your-lipids.html

Wish I could’ve heard you and Cordain speaking at Paleo Brands! History in the making…

I know what you mean by the adrenals being shot… When I overdo the Peets coffee, tequila or sleepless nites… I’m a WRECK!

Over the last few months, I’ve been doing my body temps and heart rates – they s*ck. I’m trying to recover my poor thyroid gland and adrenals (which is kinda hard after being 50 lbs overweight). There are actually a bunch of things that help bring up thyroid and adrenal health…
Here is info on adrenal support:
http://www.drrind.com/therapies/Adrenal-Support-Recommendation-Sheet

You mentioned Pregnenolone…. Preg is good stuff (haven’t tried myself) but many of our members at TYP and my Paleo buddies use low doses — it is like caffeine a little but it promotes improved hormone cascades, as it is granddaddy to many SEX steroid hormones.

SEX hormones are GOOD THINGS. *wink* Hey, say hi to Nicki!

-G

I found the 531 templates to be almost perfect in lieu of my tendency to overthink training. Write down the sets and reps on a post-it, and figure out what I want to do for assistance that day, and have at it.

It’s been the most useful training book I’ve bought in years. I also really lke Mike Tuchsherer’s Reactive Training System book. The autoregulation of training has always been fascinating to me, and Tuchsherer was able to quantify and codify what tends to be an intuitive process, but it does take some tinkering and working with it to get a feel on how to use it.

Now if I can just wrap my head around a lower carb paleo diet, I’ll be good to go.

Pierre

Re: adrenal fatigue; Robb I was wondering if you thought this sort of state calls for increased carbs and/or calories as a strategy for recovery?

Obviously one would not want to under-eat in this state but I mean is there any logic to throwing in extra carbs/calories beyond meeting needs of activity/training?

I’ve followed your blog for quite some time. This, by far, is one of your best posts… maybe because it resonates with me so much: both in regards to the strength training aspect and the adrenal fatigue. I have to laugh a bit as it is 0520 (on my day off!) and I am sitting cruising various Crossfit blogs and T-Nation articles sipping my first coffee of the day. Maybe I’ll follow your lead and drag my a$$ away from the gym+computer a bit and spend a little more time studying Dari and dig my guitar out of the garage.

Thanks for all the great posts and information. Your voice (among others) provides the grounded reality that the Crossfitosphere needs to remain relevant.

Cheers!
DOC

And regarding your own training, the key nugget for me was your line ” I’m of a mind to NEVER do anything I am not excited by and find fun.” I think that’s something that’s easy to get wrong; I know I’ve been guilty in the past of doing what I thought I should do (distance running), not what I actually wanted to do (lifting weights). If someone could extend that mentality outside the gym and into life in general I think they’d be pretty happy.

Great stuff yet again.