Training When Life Is Exhausting: How to Adjust, Adapt, and Keep Moving Forward
Athletes often think of fatigue as something created only by training. But the truth is this: life stress counts. Travel, work, disrupted sleep, holidays, and general overload all contribute to the same system your training draws from.
You don’t get fitter from life stress—but you do get tired from it. And when total fatigue goes up without a corresponding training load, performance and training response naturally go down. That’s not failure. That’s physiology.
Understanding this helps you stop beating yourself up and start problem-solving.
1. Life Stress Taps the Same System as Training
When travel ramps up or your schedule becomes chaotic, your overall fatigue rises even if your training volume decreases. This is the tricky part:
• Stress goes up
• Fitness does not
• Fatigue still accumulates
So when you return home thinking, “I’m fresh from travel!” you’re not actually fit, you’re just detrained and tired in a non-productive way. That’s why restarting training can feel harder than expected. Nothing is wrong—you just haven’t been building fitness during that time.
2. The Training Puzzle When You Don’t Have Big Hours
When hours are limited, we must ask:
How do we create enough training stress to keep you improving, without tipping you into exhaustion?
This becomes even more important as we age. Once we’re over 50:
• We lose fitness faster
• We adapt more slowly
• Anaerobic and VO₂ qualities deteriorate quickly
• Strength and athletic “snap” require consistent maintenance
Use the “no zeros” rule; getting in short 20–20 workouts to keep the system alive. Even when it feels like “not much,” it’s hugely beneficial in preventing deep fitness loss.
3. Why We Focused on Anaerobic Work and Snappiness
• Anaerobic ceiling
• VO₂ work
• Athletic snap and coordination
These systems decline quickly with age, but they also improve with very time-efficient sessions—perfect for someone juggling travel.It can work well, but you need enough volume between travel and trips so you can sustain the gains long-term.
So the next question becomes:
Can we shift toward extending threshold and tempo to get more total training effect within your available hours?
4. Strength Training: How Much, How Often, and What It Should Feel Like
Everyone responds differently to strength work:
• Some feel stronger on the bike afterward.
• Some feel no difference at all.
• Some feel completely tanked for days.
All are normal. What matters is finding your response.
Key guidelines for endurance athletes:
• No more than 3 strength days per week
• At least 48–72 hours between heavy sessions
• Strength should be far enough from quality bike workouts to avoid interference
• Include plyometrics, hops, skips, and agility to preserve athleticism and quickness as we age
Even elite powerlifters lift only three days per week. More isn’t better—it’s just more fatigue.
5. The Emotional Side: You’re Not Doing Anything Wrong
It’s completely normal to feel demotivated or to not want a big race looming when you’re feeling far from your best. When you’re tired, detrained, or out of rhythm, having a race on the calendar can feel like a burden, not inspiration.
Instead, focus on:
• Building weekly routine
• Feeling stronger by small increments
• Letting excitement return naturally
When your zones start feeling too easy again, when training becomes smoother, when life stress eases—you’ll want to race. There’s no rush.
6. Navigating the Holidays Without Losing Momentum
Everyone says the holidays are joyful. They’re also exhausting:
• Sleep schedules shift
• Travel happens
• Food is different
• Social commitments spike
Most athletes exit the holidays feeling more worn out than before. Allow flexibility. Keep the “no zeros” mindset. Let training be supportive rather than rigid. Consistency—not perfection—is what maintains fitness.
Training is a puzzle, especially when you’re balancing aging physiology, real-world stress, and limited training hours. But it’s a solvable puzzle when you:
• Acknowledge life stress as real fatigue
• Adjust expectations to reality, not perfection
• Use smart, targeted training instead of trying to “grind” your way to fitness
• Keep strength training appropriate and well-timed
• Allow motivation to rebuild naturally
There’s nothing wrong, broken, or unusual here. This is the real landscape for most athletes with full, busy lives. The goal is to make training sustainable, productive, and—most importantly—enjoyable.