Reading the load
When the training is taking more than it is giving back
Exercise raises adrenal activity for a while and rebuilds nothing on its own. Two places on a hair test where that shows.
Phosphorus is a key element in ATP, and every protein contains it. Dr. Paul Eck's finding was that either a high or a low hair phosphorus indicates impaired protein synthesis — the direction tells you which way it is failing.
The pattern system Eileen works from puts a figure on it: a phosphorus level under 15 signifies a more catabolic state and indicates that a person is not synthesizing protein fast enough. The suggested response is unglamorous — more protein-rich food, and digestive enzymes where digestion is the bottleneck.
For somebody training hard, the first of those is the one to understand. Tissue breakdown is part of training. It becomes a problem when it outpaces what is being rebuilt.
The archive is unusually direct about this. Adrenal activity can be raised by running, exercise, fasting or creating a stress situation — stress forces the adrenals to function.
The consequence is described as self-defeating: "exercise transiently raises adrenal activity but rebuilds nothing." The chain runs low metabolic rate, exercise raises it, temporary relief, zinc lost, sodium up, excitability up, nothing rebuilt.
The stated endpoint is the part worth reading twice: complete exhaustion "together with a permanent inability of the adrenal glands to respond to exercise, or any other stimulant."
This is why the training feels like it is working. The lift is real. It is being borrowed rather than earned, and a sodium figure that rises after a hard block is showing the borrowing.
A Four High pattern occurs when all four macrominerals — calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium — read above ideal at once. What makes it worth understanding is that it is two opposite things stacked on top of each other:
So the report is describing somebody who is running hard and depleted simultaneously. That is not a contradiction in the data — it is a fair description of what training through exhaustion actually is.
The listed causes are toxic metals, lifestyle stress, diet and nutritional shortfalls, and the associated picture is a mix of fast and slow characteristics.
There is a more specific pattern layered on top of it, which we call the Full Load: a Four Highs pattern combined with a double high ratio — Ca/Mg over 9.5 and Na/K over 5.
So all four macrominerals are above ideal, and the two ratios that carry most of the interpretation are both stretched as well. Everything the report measures is reading high at once.
This is the pattern to know about if you train hard, because it is the one where the mineral picture and the training load point the same direction. It is still a mineral reading, not a verdict on anyone's training.
The laboratory and workbook literature attaches a set of trends to this pattern. Written the way the labs write them on the report itself:
A trend is a direction the mineral pattern points. It is not a condition anyone has, it is not a prediction, and it is not something a screening test can establish. The reason they are worth listing is that they are what the pattern is associated with in the interpretive system — and several of them are exactly what somebody training through exhaustion would want to know are on the list.
A hair tissue mineral analysis is a screening test. It cannot tell you that you are overtrained, it cannot prescribe a training load, and it does not diagnose anything.
What it can do is show whether the mineral pattern is consistent with a body in breakdown rather than repair — held across two to three months of growth, which is roughly the length of a training block.
The people I worry about are not the ones who feel wrecked. They are the ones who say training is the only thing that makes them feel normal. That is the borrowed lift talking, and it is the hardest thing to ask somebody to ease off.
When I see the four-high pattern alongside a phosphorus that has climbed, I stop talking about programming and start asking what recovery actually looks like in that week. Sleep and protein first. The training was never the missing piece.
No. It is a screening test for mineral patterns. It can show a pattern consistent with breakdown outpacing repair; it cannot make that call, and it does not diagnose.
Exercise transiently raises adrenal activity, and sodium moves with it. The literature describes the lift as real but self-defeating, because nothing is rebuilt by the exercise itself.
Either direction indicates impaired protein synthesis. High relative to calcium is described as catabolic breakdown; low is placed at the exhaustion end and is described as more serious.
All four macrominerals — calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium — reading above ideal at once. Elevated calcium and magnesium point to slow oxidation or exhaustion underneath, while elevated sodium and potassium point to an alarm and fight-or-flight reaction at the same time.
That is the Full Load pattern: a Four Highs pattern combined with a double high ratio, Ca/Mg over 9.5 and Na/K over 5. All four macrominerals are above ideal and both interpretive ratios are stretched at the same time.
Inflammation, metabolic syndrome, low thyroid and impaired adrenal trends, alongside demineralization and copper toxicity. A trend is a direction the mineral pattern points, not a condition anyone has.
A reading averages two to three months of growth, which is roughly the length of a training block — long enough to show a pattern rather than a single hard week.
Published 2026-08-30 · Updated 2026-08-30
By Eileen Durfee — Practitioner, NBS (Nutritional Balancing Science), NASM-CPT; wellness educator, inventor and author.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Hair tissue mineral analysis is a screening test and is not diagnostic; anything medical belongs with your own licensed provider. Wellness Shopping Online is operated by Nuco Enterprise Solutions LLC.
