16 Oct Speed Training Quick Fixes in Youth Sports, Health and Performance NEVER Work
I chased a quick fix for my health.
And I got worse. For two years, I tried every supplement, protocol, and bio-hack to get my health back. From vitamin IVs, to gut healing protocols, to infrared saunas, and to detoxes, nothing worked. It backfired and made my symptoms amplify more.
Looking back, I’m ashamed I chased quick fixes, but when your health is declining, you’re desperate to heal and will do whatever it takes. So you throw spaghetti at the wall, trying to see what sticks.
The Beginning of a Long Chronic Illness Journey
In Summer of 2023, my health took a turn for the worse. It started off with a sharp throat pain that felt like I was swallowing glass. It began during a speed training session for my under 12s. On July 27th to be exact.
Those who have had chronic illness, always remember the day the whirlwind kicked off. This was the day that began a two year journey of trying to heal a menu of symptoms that took over my body.
It started of with throat pain, sinus congestion, and then extreme fatigue, despite sleeping 8 hours a night. I woke up every morning in a fog that felt like there was a veil between me and reality. I lost my creativity, my motivation to coach and go to work, and every task I had to do, felt like a mountain to climb.
At first, I thought it was COVID, as several of my athletes had gotten the virus days before my symptoms began, so I figured I caught it from them. As anyone does when they get sick and it lingers for a few weeks, I went to the doctor.
“Oh, yes, it’s just COVID. It can take a while for the virus to clear. You’ll be good in a week or two,” my doctor said.
For a brief moment in time, I felt relief. Maybe I just needed to be more patient for this to pass. And on I went with life, waiting for it to pass.
Two weeks went by, and I got worse. More debilitating symptoms popped up:
– Gut issues
– Insomnia
– Anxiety and a feeling of impending doom
– Extreme weight loss
Down the Healing Rabbit Hole I Go
Since it had been a month and I wasn’t better, in fact, I worse, I started to go down rabbit holes that I should’ve never gone down. It’s worth mentioning that during this time, the online space was filled with health, naturopathic medicine and bio-hack podcasts. There was no shortage of information on how to “heal your gut” or “find your root cause” or “detox from mold” or “detox heavy metals” or “kill parasites.”
I’m guilty of falling under several of these traps that naturopathic doctors use to prey on chronically ill people. They make you feel like literally everything is wrong with you, so you have to order tons of lab tests, stool tests, in search of your “root cause.” After thousands of dollars later, you’re not only more sick, but you’re more fearful of every single toxin in the world. Worse yet, your bank account is depleted.
The only thing that made sense to me was the mold. I thought, ‘well maybe I have mold’ because we had discovered mold in our home, hidden behind the drywall and windows, and in our HVAC. It was an old house, and we live in Florida, where water intrusion is inevitable. So I bought a mycotoxin blood test to see if my blood had high levels of mold, and there they were. I tested high igE for trichothecenes, pencillium (mycophenolic acid) toxin, T2 toxin, and other mycotoxins from the deadly black mold. So clearly, I was reacting to something in my home.
But wait, this was weird.
I had lived in mold my entire life, especially in college, when I lived in an apartment from the early 1900s with tons of water damage, and was totally fine. Why did I get sick now? More on this at end…
Protocols, Quick Fixes, and Promises of Healing
After finding out about mold in my body, I went to a naturopathic doctor to heal. He said to me, “don’t worry we will fix this. You’ll feel better in no time after my gut healing protocol.” These words felt empty. Despite his optimism, I didn’t believe him. I teared up in his office and had no faith in myself and my body. I knew I wouldn’t heal. I was sick for so long, nothing felt hopeful for me. My brain was wired as a sick person who never would get better.
The naturopath put me on 20 different supplements, half of them I couldn’t pronounce. I swallowed these cold hard pills daily, and cringed while doing so. The naturopathic route made me worse because my body was unable to handle this many supplements.
This was the first quick fix I chased was copious amounts of supplements, throwing everything at my body, hoping it would regulate.
I tried his protocol for several weeks and it didn’t work, so onto the next quick fix.
Hiring a Mold Specific Nutritionist
After consuming all the podcasts on mold illness, I found a nutritionist and doctor I really liked. Her information sounded amazing from the outside, but boy, I had no clue what I was about to get into hiring her.
After a few thousand dollars spent, yes, for a consult and plan, over $2,000, I went all in.
After filling out an intake form that took over an hour, with in depth questions about my tongue color, my poop, my sleep, and my relationships, she then gave me a full report of my issues + a healing plan on how to attack these.
Apparently, here were my issues:
– Gallbladder/Liver dysfunction
– Low Thyroid
– Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)
– The dreaded “mold gene” where apparently I had a gene that makes me unable to clear toxins (I later learned that this is a total scam LOL)
– Low testosterone (for a woman, I was extremely low which explained my lack of energy of extreme weight loss)
– Low ADH (dehydration, unable to hold onto electrolytes)
…and the list went on.
So what was her plan for me to heal?
Another 20+ supplements, daily meditations, Castor Oil packs, red light therapy sessions, herbs, saunas, acupuncture, and more pseudo-scientific nonsense. Oh, and don’t forget, I had to continue with quarterly out-of-pocket blood work to continue to check my inflammation markers to see if I was healing.
It sounded insurmountable to begin another complex protocol with a side of endless tests. How would I know this would be the one to work? Would I get better?
Alas, I was desperate to get better tomorrow. So I started her protocol hoping this would finally be that fix.
You probably can guess what happened. I got worse.
Questioning Quick Fixes for Health
I gave this last protocol a chance. Instead of 2 months, I gave it over 4 months. I still got worse. It was at this moment I decided to throw my hands up, surrender, and just stop trying to fix my health.
It was a few months before my wedding, too, and I had only focused my energy on healing myself. It took my joy away from planning the event of my lifetime to the love of my life. So 3 months before my wedding, I said screw it and gave up trying to solve my health issues.
It was time to return back to simplicity, and the things I knew made me feel better.
How I Healed Myself
Don’t get me wrong: my healing took time when I took charge of it. The quick fixes, the supplements, and the protocols failed me, so I had to commit to what I knew lit me up and improved my health. I did a handful of things that finally moved the needle in my healing:
1. Daily Movement: I began to work out again. When I was so sick, I stopped working out because I was too tired to walk. But I pushed through, worked out, and acted as if I was healthy. I lifted weights again. I took it slow at first, but any movement helped. I walked my dog daily. I got fresh air from the outdoors. I began sprinting again. The fact that I moved my body as if it was healthy again, trained my brain to believe I was.
2. Threw Out Supplements: I threw out all of the supplements that naturopathic doctors told me to take. They made me worse, and they were a constant reminder that I was sick, so I tossed them in the trash. I stuck to simple supplements that I had taken previously that had worked: magnesium, minerals, and Omega 3s.
3. Stopped Watching Health and Bio-Hack Podcasts: These were just making me more stressed out and likely to fall into more rabbit hole traps. I stopped altogether and just lived life. There’s just too much information on the internet in terms of health, and too many gurus are making it way too complicated. We don’t need to know about parasites, mold, Lyme, toxins, plastics, heavy metals, and all of this nonsense because it makes us fear everything. And fear is awful for health.
4. Did Things That Brought Me Joy: Finishing my book Female Athlete High Performance, writing again on my blog, walking on the beach, spending time with my husband and dog, getting sunshine, podcasting more, and snowboarding.
5. Stopped Fearing My Symptoms and Mold: I just stopped caring. I just stopped giving my symptoms attention and fear, and then eventually, I realized they weren’t even there anymore. I also walked into moldy buildings saying, ‘bring it!’ and stopped being afraid of it. There’s nothing worse for your health than fear.
Two Years Later, I Healed Myself
It took two years to heal from whatever I had. Looking back, I’m not so sure it was the mold that caused my symptoms, but rather, my nervous system was dis-regulated. I was stressed from Summer 2023 with work, when all of this chaos began. I dealt with the worst sport parents I’ve dealt with in my entire career, questioned my entire existence, almost quit coaching, and the stress of this all was a bomb to my system.
It wasn’t the mold. It was the stress that made me reactive to mold. And as a result, my body went haywire with symptoms.
And the more I paid attention to my awful health, feared my symptoms and was terrified of my own home, the worse I became. The more I tried to fix and micromanage symptoms with supplements, the worse I became.
When I let go, and allowed my body to do what it does best, to heal, I finally got better.
I had my wedding, and while I wasn’t fully 100% at this point, I still was able to live in the present moment and enjoy the day to the fullest.
When we went on our honeymoon afterwards, was when an even bigger healing shift came. We went snowboarding in Montana, and since my focus was on enjoying the scenery and shredding it up, my symptoms began to drop off one by one.
First, the sore throat went away after two years. Then, the fatigue, then the brain fog, then the gut symptoms disappeared. It was a miracle.
I was on no supplements or protocols during this time. Just lived life, was patient with my body, and allowed my body to move and do what it loves.
I appreciated the small wins, even when I wasn’t fully 100%, but I recognized I was better than I was the month prior. Each day I felt better mattered.
Please note: once I committed to my own path of healing, it still took time. It wasn’t a quick fix at all. It took months of embracing simplicity and the little things in life – the things I always preach to young girls in sport performance – movement, strength, proper nutrition, sunshine, recovery, stress management. I leaned into ALL of these for the long haul. And little by little, my health returned.
Now, in Fall of 2025, I can say I’m 100% healed from my menu of symptoms. My chronic illness is a thing of the past. In fact, I just competed in the World Masters Championship in the 60m with Team USA track, and I feel better now than in my early 20s.
Quick Fixes Don’t Work
In health, in youth sports, in performance, there’s no quick fix. And if you try to pursue one, your body will come back with vengeance, whether through stagnation or worse yet, more sickness and injury.
You can try and rush your young girl all you want through developing as an athlete, and throw everything you got at her performance, but if the body is overwhelmed it will never make progress. If she’s overwhelmed with so many trainings, experts, gurus, and various programs, her body will keep score and shut down from the stress. No progress will ever be made.
Keeping it simple, and being consistent with the simple, is the best path.
True success in healing, athletic development, injury reduction, and performance is in the simple, consistent habits you do daily. It’s not found in a guru, a supplement, a bio-hack, a certain exercise, or a TikTok workout circuit.
Consistency with the basics wins.
Ignoring the noise online wins.
Pick a freaking path you believe in. And that is simple.
Stop bopping all over the place from trainer to trainer, from program to program, from TikTok guru to TikTok guru, from workout circuit to workout circuit, hoping something will stick.
What sticks is what you stick to.
What sticks is what you have true belief in.
What sticks is what is simple and what humans have thrived off of for all these years – movement and exercise, strength, sunshine, rest and recovery, stress management, connection, living in the present and embracing the process.
When I came back to living my life, enjoying daily movement, strength training, sprinting, doing things I loved, and making time for rest, my health blossomed.
If your daughter is lukewarm about training, she won’t make it. She won’t go full in. She won’t stick to the process. She will give up when she doesn’t get results in a week’s time. She will chase that protocol, that supplement, that hack. And be disappointed as hell when none of these work.
And if you as the parent try to micromanage every part of her development, you too, will be disappointed. If you try to micromanage her coaches and tell them how to do their jobs, being the control freak that you are, you will only get angrier and never truly satisfied.
And if you keep perusing social media all the time, drowning in the cult of too much information on training, you will be left confused, with no clear path for your daughter. Letting go of over consumption online is the best thing you can do in her sports journey.
Like I did with my healing, just allow. And trust the process. Pick a path. Stop being all over the place.
Chill. The. Hell. Out.
It took me two years to heal myself from chronic illness, and after finally picking a path to heal, appreciating the small wins, not wanting to get better tomorrow, and realizing I was in it for the long haul, was when I finally got better.
When I picked the path of simplicity, I saw moments of tiny improvements weekly. Quick fixes, on the other hand, promise big improvements immediately, but they never come to fruition, or at least, last.
It’s about appreciating the small wins, recognizing you’re better than you were yesterday, and sticking to one path. For months. For years. For a lifetime.
Quick fixes don’t work, folks.
You can die trying to pursue a quick fix, or you can live falling in love with the process.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Erica Mulholland is a former college 3x All-American soccer player and now Hall of Famer from Johns Hopkins University. She holds a Master of Science in Exercise Science and is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach, who has been helping female athletes of all sports with speed, agility, strength, power, and conditioning for over 13 years. She works with athletes who want to become stronger and faster, as well as ACL rehab girls soccer players in the later stages (over 3 month mark post-op) who want to return to sport better than they were prior to injury. Whether you’re a fully healthy athlete who wants to become resilient, or an ACL patient wanting to come back better than ever, Erica is here to help. She practices in-person in her gym in Tampa, Florida.
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