Can too much exercise be bad???

loustevo

Just wondered if you can do too much exercise? At present I do the following - and overall I've only lost 6lbs in 6 weeks as well as keeping under my 1200 calories a day:

Monday - Core Abs & Fusion DVD - 50 mins
Tues - Gym lunchtime 50 mins cardio - Gym evening - weights
Weds - Spinning class 45mins
Thurs - Gym lunchtime 50 cardio mins - Evening Squash or Badminton 45 mins - 1 hour
Fri - Gym - weights
Sat - Spinning class 45 mins
Sun - Gym 100 mins cardio plus weights

stargirl27

I heard about a study they did on the radio and Olympic Athletes who take one day off a week tend to perform better. So maybe take a day off to let your body rest and recover.

erickirb

Are you eating back all, or at least most, of the calories you burn through exercise?

If not I would suggest you start as your body needs the fuel for that much exercise. And be sure to rest each body part a minimum of 48 hours between lifting weights for the same body part to allow time for the muscles to recover.

kdiamond

I don't think you are overexercising, but you should be eating your exercise calories back --- it is necessary to build muscle and keep your metabolism up.

jwcrater31

yes, i think you need at least one day of rest. maybe the middle part of your week.

melaniese

First, you really shouldn't be eating less than 1200 cals/day. If you are 20-30 below, that's okay, but a substantial amount is not good. Your body may go into starvation mode, thinking it's not getting enough calories, thus it holds onto what you feed it. Especially if you are exercising that much. I would suggest taking at least one day of rest and increasing your calorie intake to 1300. Eventually taking in 1200 cals may not work for weight loss.

lt_mrcook

Even most ultra elite professionals take 1 break day each week. A break from them is different than for me and you, but they still take a break. Give yourself one day to let your body catch up to your training. We don't get faster and stronger when we workout, it's when our body rebuilds that we improve. The work is required, but if your tear down too much and never allow a rebuilding period, you'll miss out on your improvements. Also every 4-6 weeks, cycle your training back about 25-50% for the same reason. Plus change things up too, so that you don't get stuck in a rut.

KatWood

I agree with everyone else. Time to rest/recover is very important, especially for your muscles. Also, you should try increasing your calories a bit to better fuel your body for those workouts.

ivykivy

I will quote from a post by Songbyrd who is an exercise physiologist who frequents mfp

In answer to the question...a lot of people associate 'overtraining' with 'too much exercise', but 99% of the time it's undernourishment that manifests itself as overtraining. The human body is capable of AMAZING feats of strength and endurance, but not unless we give it energy. You can't really exercise too much, but you can exercise too much for the energy you take in.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/25463-too-much-exercise?hl=too+much+exercise#posts-237437

Momtoelandem

I'm a huge exercise buff. You need to rest at least once/week for your muscles to actually grow/tone or else you are consistently just breaking them down. This includes cardio btw as many assume it's just strength training with this rule. Cardio is essentially ST'ing but using your weight as a "weight" and repetitive motion. What is the bigger issue though, is your lack of calories. What will happen is that you will plateau at a certain point. So what I suggest instead is to increase your cals by 100-200/day and then take 1-2 days off/week. If you're the type that needs to do something daily or you won't do it, walk a few miles on your off days. Walking won't break down your muscles bc it's something you've done all your life, if that makes sense.

ETA- I agree with the above poster that said malnurishment is usually the issue, but if you're new to exercise, no rest days make you a much, much higher risk for injury unless you go slow. You don't want an injury our you're back to square one. You can do many amazing things with your body, but even olympic athletes that train 4-6hrs/day have to take a rest day or they won't perform as well. Anybody that's run a marathon will tell you that they won't run the week of the marathon bc of how much your body breaks down.

apetermann

I think I'm on the same train as everyone else here...at least one day off is probably a good idea, as it will simply give you a time to recoup! Since I've jumped back on the bandwagon of exercise/eating healthy, all I've wanted to do was go go go!! I'll chalk that up to motivation (we'll see how long that lasts, haha!) and I almost feel guilty when I take a day off. I think it is really important, though, that you aren't overdoing it...working really hard isn't worth it when you get injured because of it!

loustevo

Thanks heaps everyone for your comments. :-)

I just feel really guilty if I take a day off from exercising but I totally understand what a lot of you are saying so thanks for that

nolachick

wow, u really NEED to eat more than just 1200 cals a day. u cannot lose weight without giving ur body enough fuel to burn. pls read up on "exercise calories".

questionablemethods

Remember that a major key to long-term lifestyle changes is making changes that you are able to maintain and not get burned out. I think being super gung-ho about exercising is great and I used to go to the gym twice a day most days every day of the week. Unfortunately, I tend to be an "all or nothing" type of person so, when my schedule changed and I was no longer able to fit in as much exercise, I found myself doing NOTHING! Annnd..... slowly but surely the weight I had lost came back on and the fitness gains I had made disappeared.

Remember that you really don't want to get burned out on trying to do too much or get injured or, if you are like me, back yourself into a psychological corner of feeling guilty about not exercising for HOURS every day. All of these things make it hard to maintain long-term changes.