Exercising is one of the most common resolutions people make as each New Year starts. Exercising is known for its health benefits, and the fit lifestyle is highly praised in today’s society. It begs the question then: can you workout too much? Although exercising can help you lower your weight, feel more energized, and reverse some health conditions, you can also harm yourself by being too active. Being overly obsessive about your exercise regiment can have a negative effect compared to what you are trying to accomplish. Be careful not to overdo it when you have exercise as part of your daily routine.
The symptoms of over-exercising
Many of the symptoms for over-exercising are the direct opposite of what exercising is meant to help. For instance, if you notice that your performance is decreasing rather than increasing, you may be over training. Here are some other symptoms that mean you are over-exercising:
- Becoming tired quickly or having low energy. Exercise is meant to help boost our energy and performance.
- Feeling depressed or sad. Your exercise should be helping you release endorphins to feel happier rather than wearing you down to the point of sadness.
- Mood swings like irritability, anger, or confusion
- Trouble sleeping throughout the night.
- Constantly sore muscles. When you exercise, your muscles should feel sore for a bit, but constant soreness means you may be working too hard.
- You keep getting sick. Proper exercise is meant to improve your immune system, but overworking your body will weaken it.
- Unwanted weight fluctuation. Over-exercising can cause you to lose too much weight, or gain fat back in your body’s attempt to over correct.
- Increased anxiety.
- Decreased appetite.
How to avoid over-exercise
Now that you know what symptoms to look out for, how do you avoid over-exercising altogether? The biggest way to do this is to rest. Your body needs to recover from the stress of exercising, so rest is an essential and mandatory part of a healthy exercising routine. In fact, rest is considered just as important to improve performance as actual training. You should also prioritize recovery. Help your body get everything it needs to stay strong and healthy while exercising. You can do this by consuming enough calories to replenish your body, stretching your muscles after a workout, drinking plenty of water, and taking at least a full 24-hour break from exercising once a week. When you are sick or stressed at work, don’t try and force a workout. Listen to your body when it needs a break. Finally, if you have plateaued in your performance for a long time, you may be overworking your body. Not allowing your body to properly recover will hinder your improvement. A plateau in your exercises could mean it’s time to rest for a bit.
Risks of over-exercising
The biggest risk is that you are more likely to injure yourself while exercising if you are pushing too hard. When you over-exercise, you start to perform poorly. This allows the opportunity for injury to increase significantly. Also, you could be causing more health problems if you over-exercise. Because of your weakened immune system, you are more prone to getting sick. This will negatively affect your day-to-day life. The mental fatigue you will experience can also negatively affect your work performance and your relationships. The point of exercising is to make your life more positive. By over training, you are actually causing more unnecessary problems. Finally, you run the risk of elevating your resting heart rate if you exercise too much. This will have a negative effect on your overall health. Be sure to get your heart frequently checked. Apex Cardiology can make sure that your heart is healthy and that you are not over-exercising