How can you tell if you’re overexercising? (guest post)

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I love me some Tamara Grand.  First from afar.  Next I made her my friend.  Then declared her my GoToWoman for all things 40+ fitness. Please to enjoy her post as she’s here by my demand gentle request.

I love Carla’s approach to exercise.

Fitting it in around life as opposed to letting it take centre stage. Figuring out what HER body needs to stay fit and healthy. Consistently making movement a priority. Finding that perfect balance between not doing enough and doing too much.

Her approach embodies what I (after learning the hard way…) strive to teach my personal training clients;

‘Be your own detective’. Pay attention to how your body responds to exercise and adjust the frequency, intensity and format of your workouts until you start seeing the results you want. Start slow, set yourself up for success and figure out the least amount of work you need to do to make noticeable progress towards your health and fitness goals.

My goal is increased strength. The last thing I want is to lose muscle by overexercising.

I’m aware that this approach flies in the face of what we all see daily on social media. “Killer” Pinterest workouts. “No pain, no gain” fitspo photos. #2aday Tweets. “What’s your excuse?” T-shirts.

All of which encourage us to exercise longer, harder and more frequently than is necessary to achieve health, happiness and improved fitness.

But how much is too much? How can you tell if you’ve fallen victim to the ‘more is better’ campaign?

1. You’ve stopped moving towards your health and fitness goals. Despite longer and more frequent sessions at the gym, you’re no longer losing weight or increasing the size and strength of your muscles. Worst case scenario? You may actually gain back the weight you’ve lost and/or regress on your lifts.

2. You’re physically tired. All. The. Time. Remember how exercise used to invigorate you? How it gave you energy to get through the rest of your busy day? Too much exercise can have the opposite effect as your body conserves energy in an attempt to repair and regenerate itself between workouts.

3. You’re injured more often. While mild aches and pains are to be expected whenever we push our bodies to do things they’re not used to doing, frequent and repeated injuries are an indication that you’re not giving your body enough time to rest between workouts. Frequent sprains, strains, bouts of tendonitis and other repetitive strain injuries are sure signs that you need to reduce the frequency and intensity of your workouts.

4. You’ve stopped enjoying working out. Remember when you used to look forward to your workouts? You enjoyed the feeling of pushing yourself and accomplishing a challenging task? While you’re still hitting the gym frequently, exercise has become a slog. You push through because you’re worried about what will happen if you stop.

  • Have you ever experienced any of the above symptoms of overtraining?
  • How long did you resist your body’s ‘do less’ message?

 

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Comments

  1. Great post! I completely agree. I definitely do NOT advocate two-a-days unless that’s what you like. IT’s totally not necessary though. Fit in exercise when it works for you, and listen to your body always!

  4. As the years go buy I have gotten much better about listening to my body. I am sure when I first started this journey I got sick a lot because I was pushing too hard without adequate rest. It’s so counterproductive.

    • I am at work by seven and have already done one workout. I have a 45 min commute…what’s this “lounging in bed” thing you talk about????

  8. It really is a hard thing for me. Exercise gives me energy unless I do too much and then I am exhausted all the time.

  9. As soon as either shoulder says anything at all, i listen, slow it down, and take it easy. Thus i don’t have what could be constant shoulder problems.

  11. Great post! I 100% agree. A couple of summers ago I was really gung-ho about my fitness; I’d start the morning with a run, then hit the gym for some weights before heading to work at 3. Since I had an hour to wait for my bus after work running in the stairwell in the 31-floor hotel I work at seemed like the only logical thing to do.

    I began to notice I had NO energy throughout the day, was taking the bus around town instead of walking, and was taking the elevator instead of the stairs. What’s the point in training hard in the gym if you can’t do any of the normal stuff? Thankfully I learned to listen to my body and now don’t do the two-a-days (unless something fun comes up!), take unplanned rest days when I feel I need them, and spend a morning here and there lazing in bed 🙂

  12. You know me so…. but I will say that I did not take rest days when I was younger & now I take 2 full ones a week. I have also adjusted my cardio to meet my new demo work job.

    I think like everything else, it is up to what people know works for them & what results they want from it. I doubt I could do Carla’s routine & get the results I want for me but that is the key – finding what is right for you… 🙂 Great points on figuring it out though… we have to learn to listen to the bod & I have done that all along & even more with age & now this demo stuff! 🙂

  14. These are great tips. One of the signs for me is losing my motivation and dreading a workout or run. I rarely exercise twice a day, but I’ve been skimping on rest days with Ragnar training.

  15. I love reminders like this, because they always make me take a step back and look at my current exercise regimen. I definitely feel that I have hit a plateau so it is time to take a step back, switch it up, maybe rest one more day, and think about what I really want, but also what is going to make me feel better. Great post!

  16. ever since trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, and having a baby, my views on fitness has totally changed. i’ve been resting for a long time and have learned to be happy with “just walking” or quickie little workouts here and there. life is more important 🙂

  17. As someone who has been dealing with a hamstring injury since April (that is finally healing well), I know I got to that point from over exercising.

  18. Balance is so very, very hard for me. I went through a phase where I was working out 2+ hours a day 5-6 days a week. It didn’t take long for me to realize that was not going to work for the long haul. I still work out 6 days a week, but very my workouts and they are almost always less than an hour.

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