Too Much Exercise: How Excessive Workouts Can Affect Your Body

Exercise is the key to a healthy lifestyle. It is good for our body as well as mind. Exercising not only helps us in channeling our negative energies in a constructive way but also keeps us healthy and active. While a regular moderate to high intensity workout provides a lot of benefits for people trying to lose body fat and increase their overall fitness and strength levels, there is a very fine line between intense training and over-training.

A landmark research study published this year tracked 1,098 healthy joggers and 413 healthy but sedentary non-joggers for 12 years. It examined their frequency and hours of jogging on regular basis and found that jogging from one to 2.4 hours per week was associated with the lowest mortality which an optimal frequency of thrice a week while the very fast paced or strenuous joggers had the same risk of dying from any causes as the sedentary couch potatoes.

Extremely strenuous exercises or over-training has been shown to affect blood parameters which may, in turn, lead to the feelings of depression and fatigue.

The stress caused by intense exercise may increase the risk of various health issues such as digestive dysfunction, sleep disturbances, depression, weight gain (especially around the abdomen), hypothyroidism and memory impairment.

Signs Of Over-Training

If one feels constantly exhausted, ill or rundown, if there is an increase in the fat percent and loss in the muscle mass, these are all the signs of excessive exercise. It’s important to keep a check on your overall health. Any activity that makes you more fatigued and prone to infection should be avoided.

Is High-Intensity Workout Behind The Heart Risks?

Engaging in regular cardio exercises is important as it increases oxygen in blood and endorphins, which are known to be natural painkillers.

Sometimes if these high intensity cardio exercises are continued in the long term, it may do more harm to the heart than good. Experts tested the blood samples of athletes and found that after long running events, the blood contained certain biomarkers which are associated with heart damage. Though these indicators go away by themselves but if the same physical stress is experienced over and over, it may result in physical changes of the heart walls and heart muscle scarring which may further increase the risk of heart rhythm disorders.

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Extreme Workouts Are Of Questionable Benefits For Health

In a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers observed a group of men, who had completed a minimum of 100 marathons. They were surprised to see that half of the athletes showed some heart muscle scarring. The same study was observed on animals wherein rats with normal and healthy hearts were taken and they were exposed to strenuous daily exercises similar to stress experienced by serious marathoners for over 10 years. After 10 years, their hearts were examined and found that most of them had developed heart muscle scarring and some structural changes in their hearts similar to human athletes.

No doubt, the intensity of workout is dependent on the age factor too. That is, the same degree of exercise may be moderate intensity for a 30 year old and intense for a 60 year old. Thus age, intensity and duration of the cardiovascular exercises are critical factors to consider for obtaining the maximum benefits from the workout.

Techniques To Avoid Over-Training And Still Enjoy High Intensity Workouts

Below are some tips and tricks to avoid over-training:

• Get enough rest: Adequate sleep allows recovering from the stress of intense exercise. It’s important to ensure that one gets sound and adequate sleep, especially on your training days. In case you are feeling restless or have trouble sleeping regularly, reconsider your training intensity.
• Check the frequency of workout: High intensity workouts have its benefits, but doing them too often may pose an issue to one’s health. Any high intensity or high stress workout should be limited to twice or thrice a week especially for those who already have health issues as this extra stress may result in making you sicker.
• Mix Exercises: Try mixing high intensity workouts with relaxing exercises like yoga and meditation. These intermediate stress reducing exercises will help you recover more quickly from the intense exercise stress.
• Listen to your body:  High intensity workouts, no doubt, improve your overall health and help you achieve your goals of weight loss or muscle gain quickly but it is always better to listen to your body first and then exercise within your comfort zone. Be your best judge and do not get too influenced by your friends, coaches and other workout mates.
• Do not skip your carbohydrate diet: Low-carbohydrate diets may seem to be the best option to decrease your body fat, but a combination of high intensity workout and low carbohydrate diet may impact your immune system negatively. So in order to avoid any symptoms of over-training, do not skip your carbohydrates.

The benefits of exercise are unquestionable. Physical activity helps us feel better, keeps our weight in check, represents a simple and very effective therapy for many diseases like insomnia, hormonal imbalances, depression etc. The only important thing is to start slow, listen to your body and do not jump into problems by exerting too much with intention of obtaining the maximum benefits.

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The future research and studies, no doubt, will focus on how to obtain the maximum benefits obtained by regular exercise while preventing its undesirable effects, similar to the studies on different drugs and therapies.