In this week’s wellness Wednesday IG live mini training, I tackled a client question: can I exercise too much?
Let’s play Jeopardy, why don’t we?
Ken Jennings: Alex, I’ll take Wellness Wednesday for $1,000
Alex: You got it Ken! This occurs when a person exceeds their body’s ability to recover from strenuous exercise
Ken Jennings: What is overtraining Alex
Alex: Yes, that’s right Ken!
Yes, you can get too much of a good thing; of a healthy thing and yes, you can exercise too much!
I have found this especially true with my new clients; beginners just starting to wrap their head around this entire eating and exercise thing. They get so excited and amped up that they have the all or nothing mentality.
My client asked me this because she was unsure if she was overexercising and after our one on one chat, we realized that yes, she was definitely over exercising, forgetting to mention to me that she was doing a bunch of other stuff not included in her plan, with her mindset being “more is better.”
If you are unsure if you are exercising too much, here are 3 classic symptoms to look out for:
EMO: You are tired, depressed, grumpy and unmotivated to work out. And when you do workout, it’s a struggle. Workouts are both mental and physical and overexercise causes an overload of both systems. Another sure fire symptom of over exercise – a higher than normal resting heart rate also indicating that you are not recovering adequately.
SLEEPLESS: You have trouble sleeping at night or have trouble staying asleep throughout the night. Sleep is important because when you sleep your body repairs itself, so if you are working out and not sleeping, your muscles are never getting the proper recovery it needs and then you’ll never get the results you are working so hard for!
INJURY: You get easily injured or you are constantly sore; a sore that doesn’t ease up after gentle warm up activity. There’s a fine line between a good sore after a workout that is new to your body and the persistent, going on for weeks sore as your body’s way of telling you it isn’t getting the proper recovery it needs.
If you find yourself in this Boat, please DM me as I can help you with a plan guaranteed to get you the results you seek without having to give into restrictive eating and over exercising.
A big part of my programming is the mindset portion, where we do good and yes, hard work reframing your entire mindset about this whole diet / exercise thing. It’s mind blowing when we begin to uncover all of your thoughts about having to be unhappy, in survival mode and suffering in order to obtain the results you seek. NO! It does not have to be this way, ok?
I promise. This is my jam. I help busy women struggling with creating a balanced and mindful wellness program that allows freedom in movement, flexible eating and all the vibes necessary to love their bodies NOW, not 10lbs from now.
