Commitment to an exercise program is great, but as with
anything, you CAN get too much of a good thing. In the case of an
exercise regime, this can translate into having the opposite effect
on what you are trying to achieve.
Commitment to an exercise program is great, but as with anything, you CAN get too much of a good thing. In the case of an exercise regime, this can translate into having the opposite effect on what you are trying to achieve.
Exercise can easily move out of the range of being a healthy habit to being an obsession. While it is recommended to make exercise part of your lifestyle, and miss doing it if you skip a day, it is possible to go to the extreme and become addicted.
Experts agree that overtraining, a condition where the body has performed too much work without balancing the workload with enough rest, can be detrimental to an individual trying to reach particular goals.
Recovery time is critical to the success of your workout. The body needs time to repair, rebuild, or replace tissue and replenish energy stores. A recovery period of one or two days also provides a mental break as well as a physical break.
Overtraining can be hard to detect. One the most common signs is an unexplainable drop in performance levels that does not resolve itself with a couple of days rest. If you find yourself struggling with workouts that have been previously tolerable, then you may be in this situation.
There are other indications of overtraining as well. Amongst them are: restless sleep, losing interest in your workout, fatigue, prolonged muscle soreness, injuries that do not heal, unusually high resting heart rate, decreased appetite, weight loss, mood swings (irritability, depression), and loss of menstrual flow in women.
It is fairly common for the psychological signs to manifest themselves before the physical symptoms do. However, it is often difficult to pinpoint them as indications of overtraining as opposed to other problems.
Overtraining is a condition that can be prevented through balance. There is a fine line between challenging the body enough to see the desired changes, and acknowledging when you have given the body so much stress that it becomes “stale.” The key is finding the right combination of time spent in the gym, the intensity of your workout, and types/modalities of exercise.
Are you getting enough rest days? One rest day per week is the minimum, but if you are involved in a more intense program, more rest days may be warranted.
When you are in the gym, are you spending more than one to two hours working out? If so, you are probably doing too much.
How intense is your program? Is it appropriate for the goals you are trying to achieve? Do you alternate easy and hard days, easy and hard weeks? Sustained levels of higher intensity workouts (longer than three weeks) are more likely to result in overtraining.
Boredom may also be a contributing factor. If you do the same workout over and over again for too long, or if you are working the same muscle in the same way several times in one workout, your muscles will get stale and not respond in the same way they previously were. This will cause you to feel the need to work harder, thus over-stressing the muscles even more.
Implementing variety into your workout, or cross-training is the key to avoiding this.
Once you have hit the point of overtraining, the amount of recovery time is dependent on the severity of the problem. A longer-term problem will take longer to recover from. If you find this has happened to you, rest is the best medicine.
The upshot of all this – exercise is good for your health. Too much exercise is not.
If you’re still not sure what to do, if you have any questions, or would like more information, please contact me @ (408) 981-1566 or email me at ho**********************@*****on.net.
Karen Seraphine holds a Master of Arts degree in Physical Education/Fitness Management from New York University, and is certified by the American Council on Exercise as a Personal Trainer and a Lifestyle and Weight Management Consultant. She owns HomeRun Personal Training in Gilroy.
