TL;DR - I developed bad gut issues. Stopped riding all together and they went away. Started training again and they came back. Any insights?
Hey everyone. Long time lurker here, wondering if anybody else has experienced negative gut health from endurance training?
I’ve been training/racing for about 15 years. Average ~400-500 hours a year of riding, the vast majority structured training and ~20 cirts, 5-10 Road races, 5-10 gravel races and 10 CX races a year. I usually take 2 full weeks off the bike per year. 1 at Christmas and 1 in early September before CX season really starts (I never loved the timing of this but have an annual canoe trip then). I’ve always tried to monitor for overtraining and lower my intensity if I started to find myself constantly fatigued or irritable.
For the last 3 years I’ve been having some really rough digestive symptoms. I’ll spare you the nasty details. But in addition to poor digestion there has been really bad cramping down the left side of my abdomen. I have been thoroughly investigated including colonoscopy/endoscopy, CT-scan, Ultrasound and MRI. Everything has come back clear.
This summer I severely injured my back and had to take 2 full months off the bike and another two months working up from 10 minute rides to 60 minutes always stopping at the first sign of pain. I finally resumed a full training plan about 3 weeks ago (5x/week ~7-8 hours).
During that whole time off the bike my digestive symptoms slowly disappeared. However about two weeks ago, right after my first FTP test I noticed them starting to return, and as my CTL has climbed so too has the frequency of my issues.
Does anybody have any insights into this? I’ve poked around on google and haven’t found much.
For better or for worse, my diet didn’t really change during the time off the bike (I managed to put on almost 20lbs). I don’t do a lot of sport drink/gels etc in the winter.
Not really in the winter. In the summer I do a daily nuun and then Skratch Labs in the bottles during rides over 1 hour.
I’ll look for a post about potassium. I do eat a daily banana with my breakfast, which I believe is high in Potassium but probably not enough to help if I’m deficient (although I believe they looked for that during some blood work).
Whilst I’m no dietary expert IME it doesn’t have to be a lot if your sensitive to something; I would rule out it too quickly. I’m just glad you have ruled out for certain medical issues
I just got over a two-week bout of Covid. I struggle with gut health in general, but (weirdly) while I was sick my gut health was good/normal. I started training again this week, and my gut has been a problem again.
I don’t know if the relationship is causal, coincidental and/or temporary … but I’m trying to sort it out.
Sorry … wish I had something solution oriented to add.
Warning / Note:
1 - I talk about taking potassium. Talk to your doc before taking any significant amount of potassium. It can cause heart problems if you’re taking too much […or too little, I gather].
2 - This comment contains graphic med details. Skip if squeamish.
@ChrisDe Yep, you’re interpreting that exactly right.
@JJ20 I don’t want to comment on your situation bc I know nothing about it.
But for me, that’s exactly what I experience. If I don’t WO, I don’t sweat, so I get enough Na + K [Potass, not vit. K] in my diet. When I WO, if I don’t blow the Na through the freaking ceiling and take 400 - 1000 mg / day of K, my stomach goes to hell.
Gross part ahead, stop now.
Normally don’t include deets like this, but bc of your situation, I think the deets will help you nail down the solution.
My digestion is fine; food is fully processed. It’s an imbalance of water & electrolytes; I pass tons of liquid, and it’s only discoloured brown / yellow liquid. There are zero solids. Definitely 1 - 2 L / day, probably more. And I’m constantly thirsty; I drink easily 4 - 8 L of water a day. When I amp up the Na + K, passing liquid stops, and the constant thirst stops. The cray-cray thing is that I’m completely satiated on waaaaay less water. Drink probably 2 - 5 L a day.
@JJ20 Sort of. Opposite direction: Approx 4 - 6 mo after starting this strategy and sticking to it not 100% of days, but very high adherence, I had a full phys and bloodwork was all perfect.
Check the edit I’m adding right now to the above. Done in just a sec. Very important, I’m an idiot for not adding it, sorry to you & all about that.
I’m always surprised that when the subject of “gas station fuel” comes up, there’s no mention of how much damage ultra processed food does to the gut microbiome. Maybe it’s not big news in the USA, but in the UK, there’s growing awareness of how additives to processed foods effect the gut. When I went to Canada, earlier this year, I was planning to do a Keegan and fuel BCBR on Cap n’Crunch. I read the ingredients on the back and found it was mostly none food. No way would I put that in my body! (Obviously KS is a different machine).
This is gonna be outa left field, but it’s understood that exercise, especially the types and quantity of members of this forum, leads to weakened tight junctions in the intestines. This in turn causes all kids of unintended crossover of stuff. In particular endotoxin is known to cause lots of problems. You may be more sensitive to this effect than the average athlete. So perhaps when not chronically training your tight junctions are doing their job and unsavory compounds at bay, but when you start training again they deteriorate you begin suffering from exposure again.
