Medical information required...

[Lil' God'rs]

Anybody have any experience/knowledge/information about 'unexplained underperformance syndrome'??

Thanks in advance,

Chris

[ifititches]

since it looks like part of the definition of it is that it doesn't have a medical cause,
http://www.sportsinjurybulletin.com/archive/uups.html
it looks like medical advice is not what's needed. Googling it seemed to bring up some pretty good sites.
sounds like support of a good coach/training team might be the key to getting through it.

[LostAgain]

I did not know that I was actually ill!

[brooner]

I did not know that I was actually ill!

'unexplained underperformance syndrome'
so thats what brooner disease actually is
Although much of it can be explained i think i may do some further reading later.

[the duncan]

where/when are you planning on underperforming chris?

[kedge]

Try consulting the England cricket team. Better still, the Aussies, who after underperforming have suddenly come good.

[Ant Jones]

Does this mean it's not looking good for the KIMM?

My underperformance has a linear corrolation with my undertraining!

[Lil' God'rs]

Any serious comments from anyone - this being the Discussion forum rather than the Banter forum....

KIMM ain't looking good Squire (no surprises there then given my recent record!!) I'm basically doing 20-30mins of something very easy 2-3 times a week for the next month and seeing how things go. Stopped feeling completely sh*te the whole time now but not exactly like doing anything requiring any effort either....

[FatBoy]

Perhaps just over training (without knowing how much training you've been doing)?

Other thoughts are is it something like glandular fever? A trip to the docs for a blood test would be sensible if you're feeling like crap without doing anything.

[Lil' God'rs]

Ahhh - the joys of a useful reply....!!

Yeah, I've done the whole blood tests with the GP route (all normal) and moved on to the Sports Doctor who has suggested 'unexplained underperformance syndrome'. Its not necessarily doing too much training (i.e. overtraining) but a combination of hard training and other stresses - maybe planning Scottish Relay Champs well enough so as to not get slated on Nope Most of the information on the web is about identifying and avoiding it in the first place. There's not much about dealing with it.

Suppose I was being too hopeful of not getting mickey taking responses

[brooner]

well i'm glad its been brought up, never heard of that before and certainly something I might check out some more reading on.

[o-a]

Are you sure, it's not a lyme disease? Would well explain a sudden underperformance... I'd recommend to get tested for Borrelia if you haven't already done it.

[FatBoy]

How much is the "underperformance"? It's probably a different answer if it's 5% or 20%.

If it's just 5% I would kick the training for a bit - reduce to just recovery sessions a couple of times a week - just enough to keep the muscles loose. Then come back in with some heavier training and see if things improve. It could be you've been doing some different type of training which has messed your body up a bit? Worth having a look back over your training diary to see if there's been anything different since you started having the problem. Also worth seeing what the monthly totals are - it could be you've actually done loads more than you thought you had.

If it's more like 20% then I suspect you're ill in some way or other. Lyme disease seems to match those symptoms (from what I know - I'm an amateur reader of training methods not a doctor!). While the symptoms don't match you being a triathlete have exposure to Weil's disease as well. Both of these are rare enough they're not in "standard" blood tests, and there are plenty of horror stories of these both being missed.

[ifititches]

my response, above, was not Mickey-taking, so hope you didn't read it as such.

Rod Jaques is the director of the EIS, which was set up precisely to deal with injury/sickness problems in high performance end of English sport. If you read to the bottom of his page you'll see some suggestions about the support needed to get through this. You have to take the pressure off your own expectations and those of others, but accept that this will probably pass (and if it doesn't there are lots of other lives to lead)

I have lived for over 25 years with an athlete form the top end of running sport (not O) and have been through this with them.There were no easy fixes, and the psychology of it is difficult to handle.The exhilaration of coming out the other end is also phenomenal.

Lyme disease is always a possibility in someone who has regular tick bites, (and there are plenty possibilities of a smaller print nature) But the blood tests for Lyme disease are so unreliable, that if it was a real possibility you just have to take a long course of antibiotics, rest and hope.(by which time you might have made a full recovery from Unexplained underperformance syndrome without Lyme disease too)

Personally I would have thought Weil's was very unlikely, though the blood tests for that are more reliable. You would probably have to explain to your GP very fully what your sport entails to be tested for Lyme or Weil's

The medical profession can cause a lot of problems by trying to medicalise things that we can't explain. What's certain is that you're very tuned-in to your body as an athlete, and your judgment on what you can't do at the moment is your best guide to recovery. Surround yourself with a team that understands that, and do all the things you enjoy doing that the training has stopped you doing for all these years

Hope it starts to improve over next 2-3 months

[harry]

Have you spoken to Dids? Could be similar to the overtraining thing he had for ages.

Has it started recently, could it be linked to allergies like Kenny Stuart (the great fell/marathon runner who mysteriously disappeared due to mysterious illness). He had always been prone to allergies/hayfever, they never worked out what it was but reckoned it was linked to that.

Got to be careful, seems I had a virus then did a silly long biking/running thing with 11hrs ish of decent pace, two days later I was wiped out and sleeping 15hours a day for 2 days. Took 4 days off any kind of training and now I'm fine but better safe than sorry because of these nasty post-viral fatigue syndromes you can get.