Be Fit: Beware of Unhealthy Exercise Addiction

For some it’s chocolate, soda or cigarettes. For others, it’s exercise. All of these can be addicting. Of course, being an exercise addict isn’t the worst of the options. But too much of a good thing can be bad as well.

It's time to stop.

Overtraining can strike anyone, but is more often found in endurance athletes and formerly sedentary individuals who’ve lost significant weight and are afraid they’ll slip back to their old ways, and their old weight. Overtraining can carry the following symptoms:

• You have a higher than normal resting heart rate
• You’re irritable and have trouble sleeping
• You’re unable to complete normal workouts
• You’re chronically fatigued
• There’s a lack of progression in athletic performance
• You can’t bust through a weight loss plateau
• Your body fat percentage is increasing despite continued workouts
• You become sick more frequently
• Your training log indicates that you’re going hard all the time

If you’re experiencing more than one of these symptoms, you might be a victim of Overtraining Syndrome. Prevention of overtraining is the best medicine. To prevent overtraining, here are a few recommendations:

• Keep a training log to track what you’re doing and the progress you’re making toward your goal. 
• Follow a training plan that incorporates a variety of exercise and rest days.
• Place your rest days after your higher intensity days (and before long endurance workouts if fat loss is a goal)
• Balance volume and intensity. You can’t have both. As intensity increase, volume must decrease.
• Fuel up appropriately. This means eating enough food to support your body and muscle growth as well as eating quality food.
• Get more sleep. The quality of your workout and your performance is directly related to the amount of rest you give your body. 

If you’re already overtrained and past the point of prevention, the remedy is to back off and rest. You’re not getting stronger while you’re working out. Instead, you get stronger when you rest. If you never give your body time to rest and you’re always going at the highest intensity, you’ll crash sooner than later. 

By rest, I’m not referring to just switching exercises. For example, an overtrained cyclist cannot simply reduce their bike mileage and swap that for running.

You need to back off and get some rest. Your body needs to recover and rebuild. Learn to take the time off and you’ll come back even stronger.