I don’t like to talk about my capabilities as an elite athlete because one of two things tend to happen. The first is people question whether I’m disabled. That’s fine. I can easily dismiss it because of ableism. Sure, it’s harmful. That said, I find the ableism easier to tackle than the second reason, which is: people will think of my abilities as goals and harm themselves in a quest to accomplish it. This is much more difficult to combat.
Recently, I was talking with someone with a very firm education in sport and fitness. I was discussing how truly wild it is that my nervous system can recover while doing over 140 kms combined of running on the elliptical and rhythm cycling each week. In response, they said, “You are crushing your cardio. I have to get on your level.”
This disturbed me. Because they should know better. This volume is absurd and took decades of training. And if someone who knows better says this, then what is the takeaway for regular people? Especially in this age of wellness influencers schilling all sorts of dangerous nonsense to fuel people’s quests to shape their bodies to that of someone else’s body they’ve pinned to a vision board.
The reality is, unless you have the same elite athlete genes that I do—confirmed via DNA testing—and the same over 40 years of training, both in strength and cardiovascular, plus a million other genetic variations working behind the scenes, I’m not goals.
But it did get me thinking about what can be learned from my training. These lessons can absolutely be goals. The lessons meet you where you are at. They are backed by science. They will make you more successful at accomplishing the fitness goals that are appropriate for you.
Then vs Now
I think some background is important here. I have been doing regular exercise since the mid 1980s when I was nine years old. I’m not talking about during gym class. Before school every morning, I would turn on my TV and do the 30-minute aerobics class that was airing. I wish I could remember the name of the show to see if it’s available on YouTube. As the kids say, it slapped! Then I would walk to school and back. And then I would run around outside for hours after school.
As I got older, my activity level increased. Eventually, I was dancing 20 hours a week on top of raising two kids without a vehicle, walking to and from the grocery store for shopping with the kids in tow. When I wasn’t doing that, I would spend an hour at the gym five days a week lifting weights to support dance. Also, I did all the cooking and cleaning and childcare when they weren’t in daycare. I was active literally every waking moment of the day.
Then, almost overnight, a storm of different rheumatoid disorders, one of which is an autoimmune disorder, ended it all. I could barely get out of bed, never mind do anything else. It was awful. Years later, I developed a non-cancerous spinal cord tumour that is slowly causing my right leg to become paralyzed. Over time, I will lose complete function of my leg.
A few years ago, I decided to get back into weightlifting to help keep me safe during the numerous falls I experience when my leg suddenly stops working when the nerve involved with the tumour gets overstimulated. Eventually, I added short periods of cardio. I also created a series of habits to support my fitness and more importantly, my recovery.
Now, at nearly 50 years old, between lifting weights and cardio, I exercise, on average, 15 hours a week when it’s not a deload week—more on that below—I’m a champion bodybuilder, and a 13-20k run on the elliptical four days a week plus over 35 kms twice a week through rhythm cycling act as a recovery tool.
That may seem like a lot, but for me, that is no where near the 16 hours a day of constant movement and exercise I once managed. For most people, my current volume is way too much. For me and my history, it is very disabled. I am at 19 per cent of my old ability.
Before we dive into the habits that got me to where I am and the science behind them, let’s talk about an important underlying mechanism that is integral to your ability to perform.
The roll of ATP in chronic fatigue and recovery
There is this neat thing called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in our muscles. In simple terms, it is responsible for providing oxygen and energy to our muscles. When your muscles are deprived of oxygen and energy, they get sore as fuck.
Unfortunately, those of us with ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, inflammatory forms of arthritis and other rheumatoid disorders, and auto-immune disorders in general, we have lower than baseline levels of ATP. Also, inflammation causes a breakdown in ATP. This makes doing any type of steady-state exercise, whether it be cardio or yoga, very not good for us because not only do we burn through our ATP faster than other people, but then inflammation from the stress of exercise interferes more.
But there is a way!
It’s all about the intervals
When you first begin on your fitness journey, throw away anything steady state. Don’t walk for more than 5 minutes. Don’t do yoga. Just don’t do any activity that elevates your heart rate for more than five minutes. Instead, go for interval training.
Interval training is when you work hard for 30 seconds to one minute then rest for a couple minutes. This makes resistance training perfect! In those 30 seconds, you won’t burn all your ATP, and you can recover some of it, but not all, in that two-minute break.
Apply this to any other tasks, such as housework. Always work in bursts followed by a longer rest period.
Which brings me to the next point.
Circuits over sets
As I already stated, resistance training is great because it’s interval training. But because we need more time for recovery than most people, doing repeated sets of the same muscle groups is not ideas. So instead of doing exercise AAA, BBB, CCC, etc., do circuits.
Circuit training is when you do, as an example, exercise A, B, C, D, E, F, with 45-second break between each movement, followed by a two-minute break, before repeating two to three more times. Start with two circuits and build up to three. Four circuits is only for once you’ve been training for years and you have an air-tight recovery plan in place.
Also, avoid synergistic muscle groupings like chest press following by something triceps which is a common pairing. You want to avoid this because your triceps are used during the press and you need more than two-minutes per muscle group to properly recover. Instead, do something like chest presses followed by something biceps. The way my circuits are setup, I get 5-6 minutes of rest per muscle group, instead of the usual two, without all that extra time spent resting in the gym.
As a bonus, when you do your circuits with only 45 seconds between each movement, you build up your cardiovascular capabilities.
Work smarter not harder
If you’re working out from home, you work with what you can. But if you have access to a gym, you can save a lot of energy with efficiency.
At a gym, you want to choose machines over free weights because you aren’t wasting energy by using parts of your body that you’re not trying to target. Also, the force curve is consistent, giving you more bang for your buck.
You want to choose plate-loaded machines over cable or select-weight machines. The physics on plate-loaded machines tend to be better which means less fatigue and you have the bonus of extra volume loading and unloading the plates.
Finally, unless you’re training for a specific sport that requires more targeted approaches, you want to go for compound movements–think squat, chest press, row, Romanian deadlifts, and a few more–over isolation machines—think leg extension or curl, hip adduction or abduction. The reason for this is efficiency. With compound movements, you are working more than one muscle group at a time, where things like the leg extension are designed to target single muscle groups.
Deload and deload often plus regular recovery weeks
This is the first piece of the recovery puzzle. I do a deload after a two-week mesocycle instead of the traditional 4-to-6-week cycle. My deload also isn’t traditional. Typically, you’d do all your regular movements and rep ranges but at 50 per cent of your typical prescribed weight.
When I deload, it is a 30-minute session, instead of my usual 90 minutes, with 12 movements set up as six super sets [AB AB, CD CD, EF EF, etc.], for 45 seconds per exercise with a 20-second break between movements and a two-minute break after EF. My weights are super light, relatively speaking, and it’s very aerobic.
Now, I follow this up with more cardio. But it took me years to be able to build back up to that. And I wouldn’t be able to follow it up with cardio if I didn’t drop my weights to almost nothing after a two-week mesocycle.
Also, after three six-week periods, I take a one-week recovery period where all I do is cardio. And, begrudgingly, I take two weeks every year where I don’t do any training whatsoever. I don’t enjoy it, but it is necessary.
Once I came up with this training cycle, I stopped the need to ask my trainer to push my workouts to another day because I wasn’t recovering and I was feeling that wonderful flu-y feeling those of us with chronic fatigue issues feel when we’ve pushed too hard.
I haven’t missed a single training session in two years. And I train six days a week. This one change was the best thing I ever did for myself.
The protein and carb exercise sandwich
You may have heard of the anabolic window: the 30 to 60 minutes post-workout that you must consume roughly 30 grams of protein to grow muscle. This window is largely a myth. Unless you are doing fasted cardio, you have up to six hours on either side of exercise to eat adequate protein. Does that mean you want to go that long between feedings when exercising? Hell, no.
More important than nutrient timing for building muscle is nutrient timing to offset DOMS: that horrible feeling in your muscles that kicks in a day or two after exercise. The best way to combat the worst of the DOMS is to not push harder than your capabilities. The best way to manage the less awful “Ah, I see you worked this muscle group” DOMS is by sandwiching your workouts with snacks or meals that contain both adequate protein and carbs.
The timing of your pre-workout feeding is a bit more important. You want to eat roughly one hour prior to exercise so that your body has time to begin metabolising the glycogen that will fuel your muscles during your workout. If you go for simple carbs, you can eat those 30 minutes prior to exercise.
If you are doing cardio for more than 45 minutes, then you should also eat simple carbs while you exercise. Gummy worms. Sour patch kids. Gummy nerds. Those special gels if candy is too sweet for you. Whatever floats your boat. Just make sure it’s a simple carb that will be metabolised quickly.
After you workout, eat sooner rather than later. That glycogen will also help push the protein into your muscles to help with repair. But don’t stress about needing to eat right away. I typically eat one hour after exercise, which is how long it takes me to drive home from the gym, shower, and reheat the meal I’ve already prepared for lunch.
How much of each macro you need depends on how often you eat throughout the day and your weight, so I can’t give exact recommendations. But a good rule of thumb for a 24-hour period if you exercise more than 30 minutes is a carb to protein ratio of 3:1 or 4:1. Also, don’t forget those healthy fats to prevent those glucose spikes.
I also have a handy post to help you figure out your overall macro needs.
Creatine for recovery, not performance
You may have heard about creatine. It is super cheap, the most studied and one of the safest supplements used to help with performance in the gym, especially for resistance training and muscle growth. Lately, it’s been in the news a lot because of its potential cognitive benefits. What I really wish would get more attention is the benefits it has for those of us with ATP deficiencies.
I’m what is called a “non-responder” when it comes to the in-the-gym benefits. It doesn’t help at all. I know this from testing. What I learned during this testing period is that while it doesn’t help with performance or muscle growth, it certainly helps with recovery. I was so painful post-exercise the weeks that I stopped taking creatine. Within two weeks of resuming creatine, that pain was gone.
The reason makes sense once you learn that creatine helps to replenish ATP. You don’t need to take any more than the recommend 5 grams per day. You also don’t need to do a loading dose.
Coenzyme Q10 supplements can’t hurt
Next on my list of supplements that help with recovery is Coenzyme Q10. There is some research that suggests 200 mg per day can help with fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, long COVID, as well as other disorders that function in the same way. Let me stress, the studies are limited and all findings are “suggestions” at this point. That said, this is one of those supplements that can’t hurt and has other benefits, so it’s worth a shot.
ATP supplements have been performance-changing
ATP supplements are a relatively new player in the field. They are still studying all the benefits, but 400 mg per day has been shown to be the optimal dose to reduce muscle fatigue and to promote recovery. Recently, it has been approved by Health Canada for its muscle-building and strength benefits.
Unfortunately, all the studies were in resistance-trained men, so there are huge limitations for what type of training and which populations, like women, these results can be applied to. That said, if you have a disorder that messes with ATP production, it will not hurt. Within two weeks of beginning taking ATP supplements, the way I felt during my workouts changed dramatically.
The biggest downside to ATP supplements is the cost. A 90-day supply costs just over $90 CAD. That is with an autoship discount. But if you can afford it, it’s totally worth trying. It’s likely cheaper in the USA.
Time management is fatigue management
My schedule is one of my biggest tools for managing my energy. The more I plan my time, including breaks and relaxation every day, the more I plan my meals far in advance, the less I have to waste energy braining all those things that need to be done. And what is in my schedule is protected fiercely. Any disruption to my schedule raises my stress levels which causes my body to attack itself. Yay, autoimmune disorders.
I know that not everyone has the ability to be as regimented as I am with my time. My recommendation here is to find that things you can easily control, schedule and then not have to think about it. Then protect it. Any way that you can save energy will pay dividends.
Rest harder than you exercise
While I may exercise two hours a day, I rest for six hours a day. That six hours doesn’t include my mid-day break and the other short breaks I take during my workday.
That doesn’t mean I do nothing. With the odd exception, once my workday is done, the rest of my time is spent doing leisure. Leisure can look like arts and crafts while listening to music, cuddling with my dogs while I watch TV, planning and journaling, reading, whatever. It’s simply things that fill me up instead of depleting me. I also batch cook my meals so that I’m only cooking three days a week.
I do not have children, so that gives me a lot of extra time. You may have children which means you may not have six hours a day to do leisure activities. If you exercise 30 minutes a day, then find a way to carve out at least one hour and 30 minutes a day for leisure activities. If you have a partner, well they should be doing what they can to make sure you have that leisure time. Otherwise, what is the point of having another adult in the house if not to divide labour and make sure your needs are being met?
Pay attention to body cues
If you’ve read my cookbook Crip Up the Kitchen then you know I have a system where I check in with my body multiple times a day and figure out my tasks based on what my body is telling me. I have the privilege of being self-employed which allows me to do this. That said, you can apply the base principle which is: do only as much as your body says you can.
Your disability isn’t something to overcome. It is something to respect and pay attention to. It is a boundary not to be crossed. When you cross it and push beyond it, you pay a huge cost. Prioritize one thing every day and anything else you do is gravy. Once you create a system that uses your body cues as a guide, it becomes easier to fit in all the things you want to.
None of this works in isolation
If I were to remove one of the above pieces, the system that allows me to work hard and rest even harder would not be as successful. If I had to choose only one supplement, it would be the creatine because it’s pennies a day. Other than playing with supplements, everything else is non-negotiable.
Being a disabled elite athlete who exercises an obscene amount every week doesn’t happen in a vacuum. I must rest harder than other athletes. I must be ever so exacting with my diet to make sure I am getting the ridiculous amount of calories I need to maintain and gain muscle with the proper macronutrient balance for recovery. More time is spent on self-care than anything else I do in my life.
You won’t have to work as hard as I do to support my fitness because unless you are also training to be a competitive athlete, that’s just unnecessary. But you will still have to do some extra work to support your fitness goals if you want to work up to exercises 30 or more minutes in a day.
I hope this post gave you a place to start.
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