Over exercising?

Are you exercising faithfully but not seeing the changes that you want in your body image or your health? Did you know that you could be exercising too much? Too much exercise can actually hold you back from excelling physically and reaching your goals.

It’s hard to believe that exercising can be counterproductive in bringing about changes to your body and state of mind. After all, we exercise to relieve stress, we exercise to improve health and body composition, and we exercise because we know it’s good for us. How could all that exercise possibly be working against us?

Just like under exercising – not exercising enough, exercising too much (too frequently, too long, too hard, etc.) can be hard on the body. When you exercise, your body does one of two things: it ether re-builds or breaks down.

Re-building is your system's way of replenishing biochemicals as you use them. Every activity, from thinking to walking, uses up the chemicals in your body. If you are unable to re-build these chemicals at the rate they are used to support your lifestyle, then you are spending more time in a catabolic (broken down) state than in an anabolic (building) state. This deficit will eventually lead to illness, weight gain, depression, etc.

As good as exercising is, if you do too much of it, your body will break down instead of re-building itself.

The stresses of modern western society make it easy to spend the bulk of our time in a state of constant catabolism. We’re always on the go, emotionally stressed, drained of energy, deprived of sleep, or pissed off at the negative forces we face each day. One way of dealing with stress and everything else is exercise – and that's a perfect solution when done properly as part of an overall approach to stress management. But when you mix exercise like a strenuous spinning class or an hour on the treadmill with other stressors on the body, your system breaks down. By not managing your lifestyle, you’re not providing an environment that actually allows your body to re-build. By not giving your system a chance to re-build, you accelerate the process of aging while sabotaging your efforts to improve your body and health. This is why we see people going to the gym all the time, spending 6-8 hours per week exercising, but not loosing fat or gaining muscle as expected.

If you’re currently exercising or about to start:

• Get enough sleep, at least 7 hours per night, to support your biochemical regeneration.
• Cut your workouts into 30-45 minute sessions max. This includes your warm-up, cool down, etc.
• Be careful with classes like spinning, hour-long aerobics sessions, and other super strenuous activities. Some of these are very stressful on the system and can lead to catabolism.
• Try to do something relaxing every day; it can even be playing a recreational sport, as long as you enjoy it and have fun.

Training smartly is always fun and will keep you young and healthy for years to come.