The Missing Link Between Workouts and Results: Use the SHMEC Principle to Optimize Strength Gains and Overall Health
When it comes to building muscle strength, we often focus intensely on the workout, but the truth is that keeping our hormones balanced and optimizing exercise recovery is the key to the results you seek. Dr. Jade Teta is a naturopathic doctor who specializes in metabolic health and optimizing hormones for building and maintaining strength gains while also supporting overall health. He is a proponent of working with your body and hormones by using a powerful framework called the SHMEC Principle that ensures you don't compromise your overall health while working towards your strength and fitness goals.
Strength training 2-4 times a week is scientifically proven to be one of the best activities you can do for your overall health. It works by improving muscle mass, boosting bone density, supporting cardiovascular health, and decreasing the risk of chronic disease, all while optimizing sleep and regulating mood and hormone function. Exercise is termed a hormetic stressor—a beneficial stress that leads to greater resilience and health benefits when exposure is brief or moderate. However, there can be too much of a good thing. Overtraining, or stacking too many stressors at once (intense demands of our fast-paced lifestyle, poor sleep, or hormone changes) can overwhelm the nervous system, create metabolic dysfunction, and undermine health. Females are also more sensitive to stress, cortisol and insulin changes and can be more sensitive to overtraining. This raises the key question: How do you know if you are overtraining?
SHMEC: Your Framework for Gains and Wellness
SHMEC is an easy-to-use biofeedback system built around five core hormonal sensations. These sensations are your body's direct clues that tell you if your current exercise and lifestyle choices are helping you maintain optimal balance or causing too much stress on your system.
- S - Sleep: Do you fall asleep easily, stay asleep, and wake up rested? Sleep quality is controlled by hormones like melatonin and impacted by cortisol. Poor sleep means poor recovery and is often a sign of disrupted hormonal balance. Overtraining with strength or cardio workouts can result in a sympathetic dominant nervous system, making it more challenging to shift into the parasympathetic nervous system zone required for quality rest and repair. Aim for 7–9 hours of quality sleep to allow your body to fully regenerate and heal. Sleep is foundational to preventing injuries as well as larger health issues like cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cognitive decline.
- H - Hunger: Is your hunger stable, or do you swing wildly from not hungry to absolutely starving? Stable hunger is managed by powerful signals like leptin (satiety) and ghrelin (hunger). Wild hunger swings are often a clue that insulin is spiking and crashing. Your body needs quality nutrients to repair and refuel. Focus on consuming a balance of lean protein (essential for muscle growth and repair), healthy complex carbohydrates (to restore depleted energy stores), and prioritize vegetables high in fiber (to nourish your body and maintain a healthy gut). Cutting calories too low or skipping meals (at certain time frames around workouts) can signal stress and halt the rebuilding process. For specific pre-workout and post-workout nutrition recommendations, refer to last month's blog.
- M - Mood: Are you irritable, stressed, or overly anxious? Mood is closely tied to stress hormones like cortisol and brain chemicals like dopamine and serotonin. A healthy strength training and fitness plan should support, not drain, your emotional reserves.
- E - Energy: Do you have steady energy all day, or do you experience major afternoon crashes or post-workout dips? Energy stability is the domain of metabolic powerhouses like insulin, thyroid hormones, and cortisol. If your energy tanks, you’re not fueling (or resting) optimally. To support your energy stability, prioritize active recovery on non-strength training days. Low-intensity movement, like a leisurely walk, active mobility or yoga, helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system. These activities restore energy and help to circulate blood to deliver fresh nutrients and clear out metabolic waste (like lactic acid).
- C - Cravings: Do you crave certain foods (especially sugar, salt, or carbohydrates) intensely? Cravings are powerful hormonal signals influenced by ghrelin and stress hormones like cortisol. They often signal a nutrient deficiency or a crash in blood sugar. Post-workout, you should not have intense cravings or hunger surges.
Why Keeping Your SHMEC in Check is Vital
Dr. Teta's philosophy recognizes that your metabolism is a system that senses and responds to stress. When your recovery (SHMEC) is in check, you effectively manage the stress of exercise and reap the rewards. This signals to your body that it’s safe to repair damage, build muscle, and optimize fat burning. If your SHMEC isn't in check, your body can end up in a prolonged stressed and catabolic state where it may break down muscle or lean tissue for energy, leading to fatigue and burnout. This prolonged catabolic state weakens the immune system and results in a chronic inflammatory state, setting one up for a higher risk of chronic disease.
We also must consider how other hormetic (beneficial stressors when done appropriately) like cold plunging, saunas, extended cardio, or intermittent fasting impact the nervous system. You can use SHMEC to monitor how these stressors are impacting your overall health to determine if they are right for you. For example, you may be able to handle fasting and cold plunging on top of your strength exercise regimen when there aren't so many high-stress things going on in your life. But, if you are not getting optimal sleep and are facing high-stress deadlines at work, you may need to back off the intensity or put a hold on these practices and prioritize walking, mobility, and other relaxation strategies to support your parasympathetic nervous system and get back into balance.
Take a moment to "Check your SHMEC" and notice how you are doing in these key areas. If you are noticing anything is off, make a list of the stressors you are currently dealing with, including life stress, training intensity or frequency, poor nutrition, or cold/sauna exposure. Consider modifying your exercise intensity or frequency, or taking a break from additional "healthy stressors" for a brief time to focus back on the basics of dialing in your sleep, nutrition, and supportive movement to shift back into optimal balance. Remember, more isn't always better, and not enough is also not optimal—you might be out of balance because you need more activity, not less. Learning to adjust your input based on the complexity of your current life is the true path to mastery.
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