Pete Wright:
There are weeks when the hardest thing that you lift never actually enters the gym. It’s a deadline that you can’t move, or a parent who got sick, or an argument that’s still running around in your head at two in the morning, or the third night in a row when sleep simply does not happen. And then you walk into the gym and the weight that moved last week suddenly feels bolted to the floor. You’re sore longer, you have no patience, you can’t tell whether training is helping your stress or adding to it. And somewhere online, a person with excellent lighting is ready to tell you that cortisol is eating your muscle and putting fat around your waist.
So today we are rescuing cortisol from the internet, maybe. What’s this hormone actually for? Why does exercise raise it if exercise is good for us? When does useful stress become chronic stress? And when life is already asking too much of you, should you keep training, back off, or stop?
I’m Pete Wright, he’s my trainer, Srdjan Injac, and this is Build for Health. Hi, how are you?
Srdjan Injac:
Hello, hello.
Pete Wright:
Are you stressed? Are you feeling it?
Srdjan Injac:
I got a little stressed right before this podcast.
Pete Wright:
No, you’re never stressed.
Srdjan Injac:
I got a little bad news and I’m like, okay, I’m stressing.
Pete Wright:
Oh, I thought it was me.
Srdjan Injac:
I need to calm down. Relax.
Pete Wright:
I thought I am a salve for your stress is what you’re saying.
Srdjan Injac:
No. No, it’s a piece of equipment I ordered and it’s just taking forever to be delivered, and they keep canceling and rescheduling, and I’m just like, okay, someone needs to do something about it, and my schedule has to change.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Srdjan Injac:
And it’s just like, okay, now I’m starting to stress. I’m like, okay, I need to relax.
Pete Wright:
You’re up to here.
Srdjan Injac:
And I did my workout and I feel great.
Pete Wright:
Oh good. That’s good. You get it all out of your system. And now you’re going to tell me why some weeks weight feels heavier than others, and what all this cortisol stuff is all about.
Srdjan Injac:
I hear people always talk about stress and cortisol, but stress isn’t necessarily what destroys the progress. Stress without adequate recovery is where the problem begins. If somebody’s doing everything right in the gym but their strength is going backwards, and they’re exhausted and constantly sore and sleeping poorly and their motivation has disappeared, the answer isn’t automatically more training. Sometimes the smarter decision you can make is improving what happens during those twenty-three other hours of the day. You have to find a way to recover from that stress. You have to see what that stress is.
And then they talk about cortisol, and there’s a big misconception that cortisol is bad and we need to lower it. That’s not the goal. Cortisol is necessary. The stress is necessary. Exercise itself is stress.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Srdjan Injac:
All right. So the other thing is that we’re going to do it. [crosstalk]
Pete Wright:
All the stuff that you’re talking about is stuff that I feel, have felt, will feel again. And I think there’s this useful question for me that is riding over the entire conversation that I bet people might share, which is: can I force myself through these feelings?
Srdjan Injac:
I think that’s a good question. I would have to say no.
Pete Wright:
And what can I actually recover from on any given day? What can I recover from today when I’m feeling like this? My body keeps a life stress ledger that I don’t always get to read. And so I’d like to understand how that aligns with the recovery budget, because you said something that really hit me, which was stress without proper recovery.
It’s so complex to understand how that works, and that is the challenge. So I’d like to land there eventually, but start with what cortisol actually is and what it’s doing.
Srdjan Injac:
So when people hear the word cortisol, they usually think it’s something bad that needs to be lowered, right? But cortisol isn’t the enemy. It’s a hormone produced by your adrenal glands, and we actually need it to survive. It helps regulate blood sugar, blood pressure, inflammation, energy availability, and our response to stress.
Cortisol also follows a normal daily rhythm. It’s generally higher in the morning to help us wake up, get out of bed, get moving, and then lower later in the day as we’re getting ready to go to bed and go to sleep. So the problem isn’t having cortisol. The problem is when stress becomes chronic and your body is not getting enough opportunity to recover from that stress.
Pete Wright:
So the implication is the cortisol levels are on a weird schedule, or a constant schedule. So when it should be going down, my stress is allowing my adrenals to produce too much cortisol, and it’s staying in my system when it should be winding me down.
Srdjan Injac:
Yes. Yes, it’s all about the recovery. That’s what it comes down to.
So what does cortisol actually do when we’re stressed? When you’re stressed, your brain basically tells your body, okay, something’s happening, we need energy right now, and your body releases the stress hormones, including cortisol and adrenaline. Then your heart may start beating faster, blood pressure can increase, you become more alert, and your body makes more energy available, so you’re ready to handle whatever is happening.
That’s great if you’re running away from danger. But the problem is today we’re actually not running from anything. We’re sitting at the desk worrying about work, worrying about tomorrow, the bills, arguing with somebody, all that stuff. So the body can still respond as though something threatening or bad was happening, even though we’re sitting on the chair, sitting on the couch.
Short-term stress isn’t necessarily bad. We need to understand the difference between short-term stress and long-term stress. That’s where the difference is. Short-term stress is normal. Something happens, your body reacts, you deal with it, and eventually your body calms back down. Just like exercise.
Pete Wright:
Right, right.
Srdjan Injac:
Exercise is one example. You lift weight, you put stress on your body, your heart rate goes up, your muscles are working hard, cortisol can increase temporarily because you’re creating that stress. But then you go home, eat, sleep, and recover, and your body basically says, that was difficult, I better become stronger, I better prepare for the next time.
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Srdjan Injac:
So that’s how exercise works. Stress plus recovery equals adaptation.
Now, with long-term stress, everything kind of breaks down when we’re stressed all the time. Imagine your body has an alarm, and the alarm is supposed to turn on when something’s wrong and then turn back off and everything’s okay. But imagine if that alarm just keeps going off all day. All the stress of every day of life. And then you go to the gym and you’re not able to turn that off, and you destroy yourself for an hour and a half in the gym, and your body doesn’t pull all those things into separate boxes.
It all adds up. I think people in fitness often forget your body doesn’t say, okay, this stress is coming from work and this stress is coming from the gym.
But exercise can actually help. It helped me today get through the stress, because when I’m working out I’m more focused on what I’m doing. So it takes my mind off of everyday stress, off of what was going on with my delivery and all that stuff. And I’m able to focus on what I’m doing, and afterwards I actually feel calmer. My body kind of calmed down.
Pete Wright:
Is it a fair assessment, just hearing the way you’re talking about it — we’re not effectively burning through cortisol when we exercise. That’s not what’s happening, right? But you are processing stress?
Srdjan Injac:
Yes. So your body is responding to that stress, but it’s short-term, like I said.
Pete Wright:
You’re channeling it.
Srdjan Injac:
You put the stress on, and then the recovery comes, and then the adaptation comes. It’s that chronic, always-on stress, the long-term stress, that affects everything.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah.
Srdjan Injac:
Right. So you have acute stress and chronic stress, and there’s a huge difference between those two.
Pete Wright:
So far it feels like we’re talking about lifting time in the gym and how it acts as a response to stress and cortisol levels and those sorts of things. Should a normal person — I don’t even put myself in that category — should a normal person care what their cortisol is thirty minutes after they work out? Is that a thing you think about now that you’ve worked it all off during your workout today, your own stress? Do you use it ever as a training tool?
Srdjan Injac:
No, I don’t really think about it. Right now I’m focused on recovery. That’s where my mind goes, because I started feeling better. I’m like, okay, that helped. That cleared my mind. I was able to focus on my workout.
I put a lot of stress on my muscles and I put the energy toward that. Now I’m feeling better and I focus on recovery, because I know that’s what’s going to help. I’m not going back to stressing more about my delivery and all that stuff. That’s when my cortisol stays elevated.
And people always talk about cortisol, how it affects their testosterone, and the cortisol belly, as they call it. I can clear that up.
Pete Wright:
I definitely want to get there, because I feel like that’s one that we’re going to need to address. But I think for me, just reflecting on the way you’re talking about this, and for people listening — when you are feeling stress, there’s that sense of, I’m going to challenge my body, my body’s going to respond, and then I’m going to recover.
The chronic stress, if you’re under chronic stress, it’s either persisting through your workout or it arrives so frequently that you finish your workout and recovery never actually catches up.
Srdjan Injac:
Exactly. Exactly. It never happens. Pretty much, because you’re constantly under stress.
Pete Wright:
So that load, which normally we’re putting ourselves under for training, now includes work and caregiving and finances and grief and illness and constant travel, whatever, your relationships, dieting, your sleep. All of those things — you’re already challenging yourself and your body, your physiology, and then you go to the gym.
Srdjan Injac:
Yeah, and you should be able to try to turn that off and focus on the workout. That’s when the workout can actually help. But otherwise, if you keep working out and keep thinking about all that stuff, the workout’s not going to help. It’s probably going to make it worse, because you’re just adding more stress on top of it. My cortisol is going up even more.
So that’s the chronic stress that kills the recovery, because it affects everything. And that’s where it affects your belly fat and all that stuff — it’s the chronic stress thing. Cortisol can influence appetite, food choice, metabolism, and where fat tends to be stored. But stress can make fat gain easier indirectly, because you’re sleeping poorly, craving high-calorie foods, eating more, moving less.
So if somebody tells you that one supplement is going to lower cortisol and melt that belly fat, that’s a major oversimplification. It’s not the stress itself, it’s the chronic stress that influences everything. It influences your recovery. And that’s why you start storing more fat and you’re not able to lose weight or gain muscle, because you don’t recover. Even for gaining muscle you have to sleep and eat right and all that stuff.
It’s important. That’s what’s actually happening. It’s the chronic stress. It’s not really the cortisol itself.
Pete Wright:
So when you see someone who says, hey, cortisol belly is a thing, and there’s probably a supplement that we can take to take it off — that doesn’t actually address the fact that you’re in a state of chronic stress.
Srdjan Injac:
No, it doesn’t. That’s why I said you’ve got to look at the other twenty-three hours that you’re not in the gym. What’s happening? Fix that. That’s what’s going to help the cortisol and the stress level.
Pete Wright:
And it also reminds me that when I’m in a state of stress — chronic stress, constant stress — I am psychologically and emotionally more likely to say yes to things that appeal to me as a quick fix. So if you present me the guy who’s telling me that there’s a thing I can take that’ll fix me, when I’m stressed, I am more likely to just get real mad and push buy. Impulsive purchasing behavior is a symptom of chronic stress.
Srdjan Injac:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Do you have any insight on cortisol and testosterone?
Srdjan Injac:
So this is the thing. Sometimes people say that cortisol kills testosterone. That’s not true. A temporary increase in cortisol from exercise is not going to destroy your testosterone or your gains. But prolonged stress, inadequate sleep, aggressive dieting, and insufficient recovery can create an environment that’s less favorable for normal reproductive hormones, performance, and muscle recovery.
So instead of becoming obsessed with measurement, it’s more useful to look at the bigger picture. Are you sleeping? Are you eating enough? Is your performance improving? Do you feel like your recovery is better between workouts? Those things tell us much more about whether your lifestyle is supporting your training.
So that’s how it affects testosterone. It doesn’t really kill testosterone. It might create an environment that’s, like I said, less favorable for normal reproductive hormones. So that’s how it has that effect that people talk about — oh, it kills your testosterone. Not really. It’s again recovery. That’s what’s killing it.
Pete Wright:
All right. So recovery, recovery, recovery — you’ve said it like nine hundred times. So let’s talk specifically about a cortisol-forward recovery and start with sleep. And I kind of want to start with sleep because I’d like to talk to you about your sleep. How are you doing, I suppose?
Srdjan Injac:
I’m trying my best. I know I’m not doing great in that area, and every time I’m like, oh, I need to sleep more. That’s why I’m taking all these little naps during the day. But it’s because I’m here all the time, like twenty-four seven. So when I leave, I try to do normal stuff like normal people do and not feel like I’m at work. Because if I go home and go right to sleep and wake up and come back here at five AM, I feel like I never left this place. So sometimes I want to just do normal stuff that has nothing to do with fitness or the gym or anything like that. But I feel like I don’t get a chance, so that’s why I stay up later.
I know it’s affecting my progress, and it’s that missing piece. You can have a great training program and nutrition plan, but if you’re constantly sleeping five hours a night, you’re making that recovery harder. Sleep affects the stress response, appetite regulation, training performance, and the whole recovery process. Poor sleep can also disturb the normal daily pattern of cortisol.
Pete Wright:
Cortisol.
Srdjan Injac:
Yeah, of course, cortisol. And there’s another piece that people overlook. When you’re exhausted, you’re usually not making the same decisions. And that’s true, and I can relate to that. You may crave more calorie-dense foods and move less throughout the day, which is true, and take little naps here and there, and then rely on caffeine like me, and energy drinks and all that stuff, which I shouldn’t.
And then have less motivation to train. That’s why sometimes I’m like, okay, maybe I’ll train tomorrow, today maybe I’ll just rest. So sometimes what people blame entirely on high cortisol is actually the combination of the stress, inadequate sleep, and maybe poor nutrition.
Pete Wright:
So how do you advise people who are feeling like that, from a trainer perspective? Like, I had a terrible night, I’m dealing with this chronic stress, I recognize I’m in that state where stress leads to poorer sleep, which leads to worse training and muscle recovery, and then that leads to me being frustrated and then I get more stressed. How do you work that kind of recovery into your regular training process or thinking?
Srdjan Injac:
So I created a routine, and I had a great routine before I had an accident and broke my arm. So I’m trying to get back into that routine. Every day is exactly the same. Everything happens at the same time, and I know exactly what to do when. And in case I’m too busy, there’s a plan B — if I can’t have a meal, I have a good healthy snack ready for me and all that stuff. So I have to plan ahead, and I used to be really good at that. That’s when all my results came in.
And after I broke my arm, that routine goes down, because now you can’t do a lot of stuff that you were able to do before. And then trying to get back on track is hard.
Pete Wright:
Hard, yeah.
Srdjan Injac:
Yeah. And I slowly start doing one thing at a time, because I know if I try everything at once I won’t be able to do it. So I started actually this morning and it’s going well so far. I got everything — my breakfast and my multivitamins on time, and drank my protein, and did my workout, and got my collagen in and all that stuff. I had a perfect routine and now I’m going back to that and sticking to that. And today’s been going well. Everything on time. Just got to make sure tonight I go to sleep on time. Tomorrow I’ve got to get up at four AM.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Srdjan Injac:
So I’ve got to make sure I get that seven hours of sleep. No more five hours, maybe six. I want to get that at least seven hours. I know during that time, that’s when my testosterone was high, when I had more energy, when I was feeling much better. I didn’t feel like I needed to take a nap. I was even able to deal with the stress a lot better than I am when I’m already tired and running on five hours of sleep.
Pete Wright:
Five hours. Yeah, right. Five hours. And I know some say that sleep is highly contextual to the person. Some people need less sleep, and particularly as you get older, your hormones naturally will wake you up at weirder times. I certainly have found that myself. I have a natural alarm that’s about five forty-five in the morning, and there’s nothing I can do about it. It doesn’t matter what time I go to bed, I’m up at five forty-five in the morning.
And I also know that under stress, you can’t cut food or sleep, or add more cardio, or keep lifting every heaviest set and expect that recovery bill never to come due on your body. That piece of balance is a thing I feel like I’m constantly dodging.
Srdjan Injac:
Yeah. It’s not easy, it’s hard, but you’ve got to find what works for you. Everyone’s a little bit different.
Pete Wright:
So just a minute on dieting, because I think people may not consider it a stress in this regard, but we want to flag it. Dieting is a stress.
Srdjan Injac:
Oh, dieting is also a stressor, yeah, definitely. People sometimes forget that dieting itself puts stress on the body. If you’re significantly reducing calories while training hard, you’re asking your body to do more with less available energy. Now add low carbohydrates, lots of cardio, and then you have poor sleep on top of it and stress from everyday life, and you create a much longer recovery demand.
This doesn’t mean that calorie deficits are bad. They’re necessary when you need fat loss, if that’s your goal. It means the more aggressively you diet, the more attention you need to pay to recovery, training volume, protein intake, sleep, and overall stress.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, it’s a lot of different things.
Srdjan Injac:
But it can put a lot of stress on you. So you kind of have to know your goal and have a good recovery plan around it.
Pete Wright:
Where I’m leading here is: what do we do about it if we’re feeling stressed? You opened today by talking about how you were using the gym to work off some of the stress you had, that you’d had it up to here with the world and vendors, and it was time to take it out in the gym. If we look at it like a traffic light — how do you know when your green light means go, and red light means stop and investigate?
Srdjan Injac:
I know, because exercise for me is what helps me with my stress. You have to find what helps with your stress. Maybe it’s a different hobby that people have that helps, and you focus on that. Regular exercise is actually associated with better stress regulation, improved mood and sleep, and it’s been proven — greater resilience to psychological stress over time. So you have to find your hobby, something that helps you with that stress.
Because when I’m lifting, my attention shifts away from whatever I’ve been thinking about and toward the task that’s in front of me — thinking about breathing, the weight, technique, finishing the set. Exercise also affects the brain chemicals involved in mood and reward, including endorphins and dopamine and serotonin. So that can contribute to the calmer, clearer feeling people often experience after a workout.
So I wouldn’t just tell listeners, you’re stressed, so don’t train because your cortisol is already high. That’s too simplistic.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Srdjan Injac:
If you’re mentally stressed but physically capable of training, the gym may actually be one of your best outlets. So the distinction is stress versus under-recovery. If you’re stressed but sleeping reasonably well, eating enough, and performing normally, training can be beneficial. The gym can be both a stressor and a stress reliever.
Pete Wright:
Well, and I know for me there’s like a gate. It’s an either/or. If I’m feeling stressed, it’s really easy to say, oh, cut the gym. But what I’ve been really working at over the last several years is remembering that just getting in the door of the gym is the gate.
Once I’m in the gym, I have a lot of choices. I can reduce sets or load or whatever. I can make choices depending on how I’m feeling once I’m there. And I think that’s the bit of advocacy that I want to make sure is there — to your point specifically, just get to the gym and see what happens.
Srdjan Injac:
Yeah, it doesn’t have to be a great workout. It doesn’t have to be, because it’s Monday and it’s supposed to be maybe a chest day or back, whatever. Sometimes I get in the gym to do a workout just to help me with the stress. It has nothing to do with my regular training schedule and stuff like that. I get in there and I just do random stuff. I do stuff that I actually love and enjoy doing. And it helps. It helps with the stress, because now I’m doing something that makes me happy. It makes me feel good.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah.
Srdjan Injac:
And I’m able to focus on that. So if you have one of those days, just do that. Do whatever you like. You don’t have to always stick so strictly to the schedule. Doing any kind of workout is better than doing no workout. It’s better at that moment to control that stress, and that will help you later in your gains or weight loss, stuff like that. You’ve got to look at the bigger picture and focus on that.
Pete Wright:
All right. Cortisol is not eating your muscle. Getting to the gym is better than not getting to the gym.
Srdjan Injac:
No.
Pete Wright:
And go to bed at a reasonable time.
Srdjan Injac:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Look, why did we even do this podcast? We should have started with that.
Thank you, everybody, for hanging out and listening to the whole thing. Take some of these lessons, see how they apply to you. Do you see yourself in this conversation at all? I don’t at all, of course. Ever. What?
We sure appreciate you joining us here today. If you’ve got questions about training, recovery, or how to make strength work in your life, we want to hear them. Head over to the show notes — just swipe down and tap the little link that says submit a question, and you can send it in for the coach. Don’t forget to subscribe and share. This is how we grow stronger together.
Thanks for listening to Build for Health.
Srdjan Injac:
That’s great.
Pete Wright:
We’ll catch you next week in the gym.
