Question for former athletes/fitness rats

[paulie]

What type of training did you do prior to falling ill? Im wondering if we have always had somewhat weak mitochindria and therefore aerobic systems.
For instance, i was phenominal anaerobically but moderate to poor aerobically and had a bitch of a time increasing my aerobic threshold vs an easy time with anaerobic.

Im curious if we always had a weakness in our oxygen delivery and consumption without realising it.

Very interesting thread. Having only recently been learning about mitochondrial dysfunction I had been thinking about why I was so bad at certain activities. I was never sporty at school. I hated athletics particularly the longer distances. The annual bleep test (running back and forth in the school gym to an ever faster periodic bleep) filled me with dread. I was always one of the first to drop out and really had to try hard not to be first to try and avoid embarrassment. I put it down to my (mild) asthma and being slightly overweight - but then how could some of the guys who were much more overweight do much better than me?

Other things have been springing to my mind recently. I used to ride my bike regularly but not any distance. I remember always having to get off my bike and walk up hills whereas my friends could manage it easily. My legs couldn't do it.

I was always a little overweight until a few years ago in my late 20's I lost 3 stone. I was jogging/walking several times a week for months but I could never run for more than about 400 metres. I was pretty frustrated by that. I used to play football once a week with work colleagues. That never seemed to get easier.

I have always been someone who spends too much time in bed. Often needing to catch up on sleep. In hindsight this has been terrible for my social life.

I am not sure about whether my onset was sudden. I had depression at the time and put a lot of my increased fatigue problems down to that. I was also suffering from stomach problems which I later figured out was a caffeine intolerance. I do recall giving blood (first and only time) and then being ill the next day at work. So much so that I had to lie down on the floor at work. I think that was the point where I started to deteriorate rapidly.

Well going by this thread it seems that even many super fit aerobic sport lovers are affected. It's still an interesting observation though. I wonder if people like me who have always struggled with aerobic exercise even when well have some genetic defect that affected our mitochondrial function in such a way that it stopped us exercising properly.

 

[KauaiWahine]

Huh. I never thought about this in relation to mitochondrial disfunction. Ever since primary school I was a top sprinter in running and swimming but no matter how long the season was nor how much we trained I could never do long distance anything. I'd throw up afterward if I was forced to. Even running a mile was torture for me. I'd joke I was a cheetah and needed to rest for the remainder of the day after a sprint. But I was the only one on my teams like this so I was just laughed off as being lazy.

I was a State competitor in swimming, tennis & racquetball in HS and played tennis 2 years in college (I got really sick after my freshman season and quit my sophomore year). Didn't continue swiiming in college bc I couldn't stand the long workouts or the cold water anymore.

My ME was gradual onset, progressing from mild to moderate to now severe after what I'm guessing is 20 years of this (it's unclear to me due to a lot of mitigating factors you can read about in my "new member intro" of you're at all interested).

But I definitely had endurance issues as an athlete long before I came down with anything so it's an interesting hypothesis. And we still have to consider that many people on here may have similar or overlapping conditions but not the same thing, so the aerobic athletes may not be afflicted with the same exact condition that the OP and I are thus skewing any conclusions to be drawn...

 

[digital dog]

And to think...PEOPLE THINK WE ARE JUST LAZY.
What we'd give to run, jump. climb and dance.
Almost anything really.

 

[Snowdrop]

Similar to you @KauaiWahine

Slow onset and very much good at sprint short burst of energy activities. Even into my almost 6th decade my last appt with my GP he mentioned that I had lightning speed reflexes--he saw this as unusual prompting a useless specialist appt.

I'll never understand these things. My GP meant well but sent me to a neurologist who essentially tested me to rule out the usual suspects--Parkinson's, Alzheimers's and I presume ALS, MS etc. If I'd had ALS I'd be long dead by now but whatever.

 

[Richard7]

@KauaiWahine the throwing up is interesting, the whole thread is interesting, but the throwing up would seem to suggest that you had too high a build up of lactate.

My source is just wikipedia (this has prompted me to read up on metabolism) so I do not know the mechanics but maybe these things are diagnostic.

I know that Julia Newton has said something about some of her study subjects having problems clearing lactate. Maybe that was what was going on for you.

Also this would suggest an anaerobic weakness, that it would work for short bursts when they were spread out but not when it was drawn on too much or for too long. So if you add a broken aerobic system, what people like Mark van Ness say is happening with CFS, to a malfunctioning anerobic system you may just get however you are feeling today.

Is this where I say "yay science"? I don't know enough about this, just reading up on it, but as I may have mentioned somewhere earlier in the thread that a biochemist who questioned me about a dozen years ago thought I had a longstanding, probably genetic, problem with creatine transport or production.

 

[Dichotohmy]

I was a fitness rat before illness. I tended to prefer anaerobic-type weightlifting and HIIT-type stuff because I long considered it the best bang for the buck timewise. Time was important because prolonged aerobic exercise and prolonged lifting would cause more joint and muscle pain for me while not offering faster recovery. I never had a problem with aerobic performance and could run 10 miles of more at an aerobic pace; however at the expence of bad joint and quadricep pain.

What is interesting to me is that I long seemed to take a longer than normal amount of time to recover from exercise - back to at least 15 year before illness. By that I mean muscle and joint pain, as well as stiffness and muscle weakness just always seemed to linger too long. This helped result in injuries like stress fractures, tendonitis, and many joint dislocations when I was in physically demanding military service. This problem never went away despite being in excellent shape - a plateau if you will.

My illness seemed to come on over about a month's time. During this time I noticed increasing amounts of declining performance output, but sporadic days where I could exercise like normal. In the end, the performance output lessened and the sporadic days of normal vanished.

I have never been able to re-establish an exercise routine since. The good news is that its only been 2.5 years for me and I'm not deconditioned. I have, perhaps every six months or so, tryed to test my exercise limits again and find I'm still in better physical shape than most fat, lazy Americans. I have however lost about 15 pounds of muscle and am now 5'9 and 120 pounds.

 

[Richard7]

@Dichotohmy I don't know what type of exercise you are doing now but you may want to look into workwell http://www.workwellfoundation.org/research-and-latest-news/

Their position is that we have a broken aerobic system so they advocate avoiding aerobic exercise. The video at the top of the page is very long, but the idea is that you wear a hear rate monitor with an alarm set at your aerobic/anaerobic threshold, or 100bpm. Rest mostly, do things sitting or lying down if you can and if the alarm goes off stop what you are doing, lie down and do some breathing exercises until you get back to your resting heart rate.

They do recommend doing limited resistance exercise on the muscles you need to use in everyday life. And they advise doing those exercises reclined when possible.

You may also want to look at body by science, this kind of low rep short duration exercise is reccomended by Sarah Myhill.

I made the mistake of doing just about all that I could do every day for the first 13 years I had CFS, I really wish I had known this stuff back in the begining. I really wish the medical people I spoke to, the people who encouraged me to walk, had known it too.

And yes 13 years does mean that I am only now understanding it. I read some of it a year ago but did not really get it. Then I saw the van ness videos and something clicked. Last week I took all of this to my GP who is going to consult with an exercise physiologist and get back to me. She is seeing if there is a way to do all of this under medicare, which would be great. (I guess the US equivalent is seeing if there is a way to do it that is covered by insurance.)

 

[Skippa]

I was a fitness rat before illness. I tended to prefer anaerobic-type weightlifting and HIIT-type stuff because I long considered it the best bang for the buck timewise. Time was important because prolonged aerobic exercise and prolonged lifting would cause more joint and muscle pain for me while not offering faster recovery. I never had a problem with aerobic performance and could run 10 miles of more at an aerobic pace; however at the expence of bad joint and quadricep pain.

What is interesting to me is that I long seemed to take a longer than normal amount of time to recover from exercise - back to at least 15 year before illness. By that I mean muscle and joint pain, as well as stiffness and muscle weakness just always seemed to linger too long. This helped result in injuries like stress fractures, tendonitis, and many joint dislocations when I was in physically demanding military service. This problem never went away despite being in excellent shape - a plateau if you will.

My illness seemed to come on over about a month's time. During this time I noticed increasing amounts of declining performance output, but sporadic days where I could exercise like normal. In the end, the performance output lessened and the sporadic days of normal vanished.

I have never been able to re-establish an exercise routine since. The good news is that its only been 2.5 years for me and I'm not deconditioned. I have, perhaps every six months or so, tryed to test my exercise limits again and find I'm still in better physical shape than most fat, lazy Americans. I have however lost about 15 pounds of muscle and am now 5'9 and 120 pounds.

Hi, I don't know what activity level you are now at, but I found regular walking to be effective in minimising drop-off/deconditioning, and a SMALL amount of dynamic tension can maintain muscle mass.

Worth looking into, just be careful of PEM.

I find this is ONLY a maintainence schedule, and does not increase overall fitness into other areas, indeed it takes up about 3/4 of my energy envelope for the day and doesn't increase ever.

 

[Keela Too]

Twenty years ago, when we used to have a horse that couldn't keep going over time, the vet told us he had trouble clearing lactic acid and told us to feed him bicarbonate in his feed morning and evening. This helped. I even did some long distance rides on him... mind you I still treated him with kid gloves and used to get off an run beside him sometimes! LOL - changed times.

 

[Richard7]

@Keela Too funny I was just thinking about a post I read a while back on PEM busters which recommended bicarb.

I know that some atheletes also take it, maybe for the same reason.

One of the webpages I glanced at today mentioned that the low pHs also made it harder to metabolise fats. So if Chris armstrong et al are right about glycolisis being impaired, and you have too much lactic acid and this impairs lipid metabolism, protein and creatine would be the only energy sources left.

I need a time machine to go back to before I got CFS/ME to (a. not get CFS/ME, and) take the biochem and biology necessary to understand this. (and b. to z. not get CFS/ME)

 

[Keela Too]

One of the webpages I glanced at today mentioned that the low pHs also made it harder to metabolise fats. So if Chris armstrong et al are right about glycolisis being impaired, and you have too much lactic acid and this impairs lipid metabolism, protein and creatine would be the only energy sources left.

If you can find the link to that I would be very interested to read it.

 

[OkRadLakPok]

Marathon, gymnast, hockey, and cross fit. Got very sick after 135 pullups in 1 1/2 hours. That was it for me. Stupid, yes, but others were doing it and were OK.
I hate Cross fit now.
I can still walk and can run a bit if I push. But I pay for it dearly with explosions of pain and heat, like I am thermal. It hurts so bad.
Again, like many of you, I had symptoms before. Weakness and not being able to go higher on quads though could on arms.
Trouble eating, pain, and exhaustion. Pushed through and then hit wall.

 

[Janice Hargreaves]

I was a competitive swimmer as a kid. Very interesting thread this! When it all started with me they thought it was MS to begin with, then after couple of MRIs 6 months due to optic neuropathy plus extreme fatigue they then had me down as "over training" even though I'd stopped training 20 years previously.!? Then 5 years after that batch I got Infectious mononucleosis a couple of times. I've never managed to recover since. Doh!

 

[me/cfs 27931]

Joined the high school cross country running team at the end of 8th grade. A few months later, I got very sick/bedridden for more than a month. Doctors said it was a virus, but they were unable to identify it.

Even after "recovery", I felt weak, but began training again, and even ran a marathon. Running began to feel like torture, but I was young and determined and doctors recommended exercise.

Then all the weird neuro stuff started to kick in. Torso muscle spasms, eye tracking problems, brain fog, facial tics, insomnia, dizziness, stumbling etc., and a constant state of PEM with overlapping respiratory/ear infections.

I began to feel very depressed, was taken out of school and given ECT and one of the early tricyclics (Elavil). ECT permanently erased 6 months of memory.

I never ran competitively or any significant distance again. 37 years after the initial viral infection, I was finally correctly diagnosed with ME/CFS.

 

[Richard7]

@Keela Too https://runnersconnect.net/running-nutrition-articles/energy-systems-running/

I read it because I was just looking for an overview of metabolism and running and it just mentions this in passsing. Its not a good scientific/authoratitive source.

 

[Keela Too]

Ah okay. I'll have a read, as it is an interesting thought. Thanks.

 

[digital dog]

Weblog, the thought of you being put on drugs and having an ECT makes me so sad.
Im so sorry what you have endured in this life....and all the rest of us.

 

[Aerose91]

Thanks, everyone for chiming in on this thread.

It seems like some other people had quad weakness prior to getting sick which is interesting. I always had issues with strengthening my quads as well and never knew why. Considering this is one of your highest concentrations of mitochindria, it leaves an interesting question

 

[KauaiWahine]

Twenty years ago, when we used to have a horse that couldn't keep going over time, the vet told us he had trouble clearing lactic acid and told us to feed him bicarbonate in his feed morning and evening. This helped. I even did some long distance rides on him... mind you I still treated him with kid gloves and used to get off an run beside him sometimes! LOL - changed times.

Interestingly I came across something yesterday while I was looking into the anaerobic threshold & lactic acidosis problems of people with me/cfs... this website has a lot of interesting info (the doc is in Wales for anyone who lives nearby, but I'm guessing a lot of you already know about her site?) but on this page she mentions horses in relation to Fibromyalgia:

"in horses there is a condition known as azoturia (tying up), which does not have an obvious human parallel. I suspect, however, that this parallel is fibromyalgia.
... I suspect that in fibromyalgia there is an inappropriate switch from aerobic mitochondrial production of energy (via oxidative phosphorylation) to glycolysis (very inefficient anaerobic production of energy, not requiring oxygen, but with a large build up of lactic acid)."

The article is long and a very interesting read (with links to other good articles) so I won't quote it all here but she also mentions "Allergic Muscles" which I had never heard of before!

http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Fibromyalgia_-_possible_causes_and_implications_for_treatment

 

[Skippa]

Thanks, everyone for chiming in on this thread.

It seems like some other people had quad weakness prior to getting sick which is interesting. I always had issues with strengthening my quads as well and never knew why. Considering this is one of your highest concentrations of mitochindria, it leaves an interesting question

YES!

These are the muscles that burn fastest up the stairs (after a lifetime of walking up and down the stairs!) and never get "better".

My calves are like tree trunks, but my quads just burn and moan.