Weight Gain after High-Volume week
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Triguy98 posted 2 years ago.
It's not uncommon at all to put on a few pounds after har workouts/ races. It's pretty well documented, actually. It's just water weight and it'll drop off soon.
Life is short. Play hard and get dirty doing it.
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Red5 posted 2 years ago.
That's so funny, I had the same thing happen this week. After a heavy week last week, this weekend I had popped up about 4 lbs. Our bodies, in an effort to adapt to the higher work load, store more water in preperation. In a day or 2, we will reabsorb or dispel the excess.
_______
Bryan
Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
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1466 days
kona_expat posted 2 years ago.
It is due to muscle trauma. Same thing is relatively common after marathons, Ironmans, really epic workouts. When you traumatize yourself doing these things, some cells literally explode, and their fluid contents are released intracellularly and add an inflammatory reaction and there you go.
This is one reason why many people (Gordo, me, my coach) advocate separating your long ride from your long run by at least 48 hours. The cumulative trauma of doing them back to back is harder on your body than if you recover in between. And you won't experience the edema.
But as you become more fit, the workload required to elicit the response can increase.
Another thing that can cause the edema is if you ingested a lot of sodium. Put that together with really working yourself, and it can make for a lot of swelling.
I have never heard that our bodies automatically store more water in a heavy week. I do lots of "heavy" weeks, but the only time I experience the water weight gain is after an EXTREME workout/event.
If you are just reaching your training peak, it's possible that you are just maximizing your muscles' ability to store glycogen, in which case the extra water makes sense, since 1g glycogen is stored with 3g water. But that would just be putting on weight!
Again, this is usually caused by sodium overload or extreme workload. With the workload, over time you can adapt to it, up to a point. Even highly fit athletes experience the edema after marathons, ultramarathons, Ironmans.
Since the edema is usually accompanied by inflammation, this is why it is not recommended to use a hot tub or sauna for at least 48 hours after the trigger event. The body is already fighting off inflammation, and more heat can just make it worse.
I sort of hope Dr. Rios chimes in on this. I'm sure he can get more scientific.
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976 days
thebiochem1000 posted 2 years ago.
I think you're just getting fat, I mean did you see your plate at dinner last night? That thing was overflowing!
It is due to muscle trauma. Same thing is relatively common after marathons, Ironmans, really epic workouts. When you traumatize yourself doing these things, some cells literally explode, and their fluid contents are released intracellularly and add an inflammatory reaction and there you go.
I certainly hope that was not part of the explanation for mav's weight gain. While he's a cool dude and all I highly doubt he disobeys the law of mass conservation. Every muscle cell in your body could lyse at this moment and you won't gain any weight...
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767 days
lowellinmd posted 2 years ago.
Funny, but when I have a taper or recovery week, I lose a few pounds. This certainly fits with the muscle trauma hypothesis and it always surprised me why I should lose weight when not training as much.
I don't drink salty sports drinks and I watch sodium intake since a couple of really salty meals will make me gain a few pounds.
After reading kona_expats post I think I might add a rest day between my long ride and long run, having bunched them together on the weekend.
So for the past two days my weight has been about 4lbs higher than normal (150 to 154/5). I'm assuming this is just water weight but I'm surprised that I weight 4lbs more. Reason being, I did a 20miler on Saturday and a 100miler on Sunday and ate one large, reasonably healthy recovery meal to follow and then stuck to my regular eating schedule. I don't feel lethargic and can't really notice any change in my physique but that large of a jump in body weight came as a surprise (especially to a former wrestler...). I'm hoping it's my body storing up some water but do any of you have any ideas?
"I run because it always takes me where I want to go" -Dean Karnazes