Athletes know that training hard is only part of the performance equation. True success depends on managing both physical and mental stress and ensuring the body is ready to adapt and recover. Stress in athletes doesn’t just come from workouts. Life, work demands, school, relationships, and mental health all play a role. That’s why monitoring athlete readiness is essential for avoiding burnout, staying healthy, and reaching peak performance. Read on for more information on helping athletes balance mental and physical stressors and nutrition with an Athlete Health & Readiness Checklist.
Understanding Stress in Athletes
Not all stress is bad. In fact, when we train, we voluntarily put our bodies under stress to stimulate positive adaptations. That’s how we get stronger, fitter, and more resilient.
The issue, however, is that the brain isn’t able to tell the difference between voluntary and involuntary stress. As my colleague Chris Johnson PT says, “There is training load and there is life load. The brain doesn’t know the difference.”
Training, work, school, relationships, mental health, physical health, and more all contribute to our overall stress load. Maybe you’ve been able to handle this training in the past, but in the past, you didn’t have the life stressors that you have today. If we’re not careful, we may have more stressors than we can positively adapt from. That’s when fatigue, injury, or burnout sets in. This is why it’s important that our training doesn’t add too much additional stress than we are able to recover from.
How Stress Impacts Athlete Readiness
Athlete readiness isn’t just about being physically fit. It’s about whether the body and mind are prepared to recover, adapt, and perform. Stress in athletes directly influences this readiness.
Physical Stressors
Physically speaking, high training volume and intensity without adequate recovery creates an overstressed state.
Examples of situations in which this may occur include:
- Stacking race after race without sufficient recovery time in between.
- A lifestyle in which there is always an in-season activity (e.g. skiing in winter, running in spring, mountain biking in summer, etc) and never having an off season.
- Juggling high training loads with other responsibilities, such as a full-time job.
- Attempting to train at the same volume as professional athletes while also working 40+ hours/week (which is a huge amount of cumulative stress).
- Inadequate nutrition to keep up with the demands of training and the total amount of stress we’re experiencing.
Mental Stressors
Mentally speaking, mental health struggles also contribute to our overall stress load and impact our nutrition and ability to recover.
Examples of this include:
- Anxiety can decrease our connection with body signals and influence our food choices.
- Depression can decrease motivation to prioritize self-care, including nutrition, food preparation, and active recovery.
- Underfueling influences our mood and can worsen mental health conditions, because the body requires nutrients and energy to create neurotransmitters that improve our mental state.
In other words, food impacts mood, and mood impacts food. This cycle plays a central role in athlete readiness.
Just as athletes have coaches to guide their training and performance, they can also benefit from therapists and other providers to support mental health!
The Role of Nutrition in Managing Stress
When considering an athlete’s health and readiness, it’s important to consider more than just their training load. Stress from training, daily life, and more all need to be taken into account when considering an athlete’s overall stress load.
The greater the overall stress load, the greater the requirement for adequate nutrition to help the body recover and adapt! Energy, iron, and phytonutrients are especially important during periods of heavy training or emotional stress.
Proper nutrition ensures that stress, both physical and mental, doesn’t tip the body into an overtrained or depleted state.
Think of it this way… I grew up showing horses, and for some shows, your horse would have to be evaluated by a vet to see if they were healthy enough to compete. What would sport be like if we did the same?
Athlete Readiness Checklist
Here’s a simple checklist providers and athletes can use to monitor their readiness:
- Am I recovering well between sessions?
- Energy, muscle soreness, and sleep quality are good signs to track.
- Energy, muscle soreness, and sleep quality are good signs to track.
- Is my nutrition meeting my needs?
- Am I fueling enough for both life load and training load?
- Am I fueling enough for both life load and training load?
- How am I managing life stress?
- Work, school, or relationships can impact recovery just as much as hard training.
- Work, school, or relationships can impact recovery just as much as hard training.
- Am I mentally prepared?
- Mood, motivation, and emotional resilience are as important as fitness.
- Mood, motivation, and emotional resilience are as important as fitness.
- Do I have enough rest or downtime?
- An off-season or lighter training period is essential for long-term performance.
Supporting Athlete Readiness Beyond Training
Just as athletes benefit from coaches to guide their training, they also thrive when supported by therapists, dietitians, and mental health professionals. Athlete readiness is holistic, it’s about balancing stress in athletes with nutrition, recovery, and psychological health.
For providers who want to deepen their expertise, my REDS Provider Masterclass offers comprehensive training to become a certified REDS-informed provider. This helps professionals better support athletes in managing stress, fueling properly, and performing at their best.
If you’re an athlete looking for a REDS-informed provider, check out the directory of providers who have completed my course and become certified.