Can You Workout Too Much?
How to build a sustainably fit lifestyle.
You want to workout, you know you need to.
To get fit and feel strong and become your best self. But you keep hitting these walls of fatigue and muscle soreness that are getting in the way of your goals. Anyone who has any skin in the fitness game knows exactly what I am talking about.
As a massage therapist for the last two decades, I learned through my work just how much burnout, injury, and persistent muscle soreness people are actually experiencing from exercise. Like a lot.
And sadly it hinders people from moving forward with exercise in a consistent way.
So the big burning question for my clients and myself is how do we workout in a sustainable way - to maximize the benefits, minimize the risks, and stay committed.
The problem with the fitness industry.
An eye opening study surveyed thousands of physically active people between the ages of 25-50, and revealed that over 50% of participants had sustained an exercise-related injury within the last two years.
Thats a soberingly high number and I think its an issue thats not talked about enough. So what are we doing wrong?
Researchers suggest it stems from an imbalanced approach to fitness.
We have high hopes and big dreams, but don’t seek to educate ourselves, get a trainer, or create a strategy. We just dive right in without a plan.
We bought into the industry message to just ‘do it’. Show up, push hard, sweat it out and get that endorphin rush of being a warrior for an hour. Until we blow something out or get run down and are forced to stop.
So how do we get smarter about working out?
The sustainably fit lifestyle.
We can dropout of fitness when we have a setback, or figure out how to make it a sustainable part of our life.
I think we can learn a lot from the habits of high-performance athletes. There is a science behind their success, as well as a team of highly qualified experts. Elite athletes have a surprisingly holistic approach to their training. They understand you can’t achieve and maintain a high level of athleticism from just training alone. It’s a total lifestyle.
And every expert will tell you that the key to performance and longevity is planned recovery time.
The reason is that we build muscle and burn fat post-workout, during rest. Exercise and recovery are actually a complete cycle. One without the other is a broken system. Planned recovery time is possibly the most important principle to lock down for achieving sustainability in fitness.
Recovery fundamentals.
I get a lot of incredulous looks when I ask people what they do for recovery. They seem to associate it with copping out. But recovery is so much more nuanced than sitting around and doing nothing.
The point of recovery is to optimize our body transformation, and to protect against injury and burnout.
We achieve that though practices that promote healing, replenish energy reserves, and continually expand our skills and capabilities.
The four key pillars of recovery are - rest, nutrition, self-care, and learning. And the first step in the process is creating a schedule.
Creating a recovery schedule.
A good recovery schedule will include both long and short term goals.
For example, professional athletes are advised to take a certain number of days off each week, and entire weeks off in between training cycles.
So a solid recovery plan will have a weekly, seasonal, and annual component to it.
I will use myself and my personal trainer as an example.
We take one day off each week for passive recovery which is total rest from exercise. This is the minimum that sports medicine experts recommend. We then add a second day per week for active recovery which includes low-impact, low-intensity movements that improve circulation, mobility, range of motion, and core stability.
That could be yoga, pilates, light callisthenics, cycling or jogging. Anything you enjoy thats not super demanding and helps to expand your movement repertoire.
We follow a consistent training cycle of three weeks on, followed by one week off.
That means we work hard at our fitness goals for three weeks in a row, then wind it down for a week with low-impact movement and rest.
I also include 2-3 weeks off high-intensity exercise once or twice a year. I do this because my business is very physically demanding and I need more recovery time compared to someone who works in an office.
The energy balance.
Once a recovery schedule is established it can then be filled with practices that balance out the demands of our fitness routine.
Rest and nutrition are probably the two most critical inputs. Consistent good quality sleep and a healthy diet replenish the energy reserves we use up during exercise, and fuel the growth and repair of muscle.
If we build up an energy deficit by skipping out on sleep or not getting enough clean calories we can push into a chronically catabolic state.
Thats when we break our body down faster than it can rebuild.
Sports doctors call it overreach or overtraining syndrome (OTS) when we cross that invisible line and start to feel run down, under-motivated, and workouts get tougher to complete. We might also experience persistent muscle soreness, moodiness, or have bouts of lowered immunity.
So think of rest and nutrition as the energy economy of a sustainable fitness practice, balancing supply with demand.
Next level recovery.
Finding your energy balance is foundational for a sustainable fitness practice but the next level up would be to address the stress impacts of exercise.
Hitting the gym and playing sports is incredibly therapeutic for both mind and body. Thats the real motivation for doing it, much more than getting the hot body.
But it can be hard to maintain our motivation.
If we tunnel vision how we exercise and never branch out, it can get pretty boring and repetitive. We start to lose the stimulation that comes from challenging ourself in a new way. Only engaging in one type of sport or exercise also creates repetitive muscle strain patterns that can lead to injury and chronic pain.
A truly sustainable fitness practice needs to evolve and grow. The secret to staying passionate about fitness is by continuously refining our goals and skillset. Which is why the next level recovery practices are self-care and learning.
Expanding the repetoire.
Researchers cite some of the leading causes of sports-related injury are poor form during exercise, a lack of flexibility, and failure to cross-train in other modalities.
Which is why so many fitness trainers recommend activities that help release muscle tension, improve joint mobility, and expand our movement repertoire.
Self-care practices like stretching, self-massage with a Theragun or massage ball, foam rolling, cold showers and cold plunges, all help to optimize our recovery and performance for the long-run. They not only feel amazing, but also prevent the musculoskeletal stress associated with exercise, from getting out of hand.
Become a lifelong learner.
Another highly intelligent way to spend your recovery time is exploring new movement styles and approaches to fitness. On my days and weeks off I dedicate time to learning new moves.
Some of the key learning themes that I focus on are how I can vary my routine, progressively challenging myself through increasing load, or time under tension, improve my posture and form, and cross-train in some exciting new way.
Building planned recovery time into our routine is a total lifestyle.
Its a holistic approach to fitness with long-term benefits that cultivates true self-mastery.
