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Reminds me a lot of Overtraining Syndrome (OTS), the condition where your body stops responding positively to the stress of endurance sports and essentially sto

Reminds me a lot of Overtraining Syndrome (OTS), the condition where your body stops responding positively to the stress of endurance sports and essentially stops recovering quickly. A 20 mile run no longer makes you faster, instead the fatigue from it just settles inside your body. I remember reading that while training for an ironman and getting a bit spooked. But then I realized that the folks who suffer from OTS are taking it to such an extreme. This article reminded me a lot of that - it sounds like you can take anything too far. At the 99.99th percentile, probably any healthy activity can become an obsessive act that can ruin your life. But anywhere in between the 50th and 99th percentile it's probably still a good thing.

californical 4y ago
Yeah I had similar thoughts about OTS when training for one myself — but I think it’s a lot easier to push into that hypothetical 99.99 percentile than you think. Like maybe 1/20 people will ever do something as intense as a triathlon, in general. So we’re already at 95%. Then maybe 10% of triathletes will do a full Ironman. 99.5%. Of that top level who train for an Ironman, half are not training that hard and just having fun. 99.75%. So if you’re someone who is training hard for an Ironman, you’re already well beyond the 99th percentile. But still only a small fraction of people who train for an Ironman have any issues with it. But if you’re at that level, you’re already close to the top and it’s not a crazy stretch to think you could get there if you got a bit carried away. Similar with meditation, I think the analogy works. If you’re consistently meditating for 10min per day for several straight months, that’s more than most people would ever do.