Burning too many calories seems far from being a problem, but it’s an issue that could majorly damage your health. While it’s easy to get addicted to the adrenaline that comes with a good workout, the addiction often results in ignoring the importance of pacing during cardio and diminishes the importance of rest days. Ignoring the importance of taking breaks and participating in long stretches of exercise results in overtraining and ultimately puts large amounts of stress on your body. Here are 4 possible consequences of overexercising.
Develop a Negative State of Mind
Suddenly, everyone you once adored has become annoying. But the problem isn’t the people around you, it’s you. When you don’t take a rest day, you subconsciously start becoming more irritable. Your brain thinks more pessimistically, focusing on the bad instead of the good. Instead of feeling proud of the little changes, you’ll start wondering why your body isn’t showing immediate results, especially since you’re working your butt off every day of the week.
Overexercising leads to self-critical thinking, which is the cause of the new pessimistic attitude you’ve taken on. Your mind slips into a downward spiral without you knowing it. It’s more difficult for your body to relax, meaning it’ll also be even more difficult to go to sleep. Sleeping becomes more and more of a hassle, you’ll stray closer to insomnia than ever. Not only will your body be exhausted, but your state of mind will be as well.
Increased Risk of Injury
Contrary to popular belief, working out every day gives you a disadvantage over everyone else. Exercising daily means your muscles won’t have a chance to recover. Have you noticed feeling sore in several new places, such as in your joints? This is a sure-fire sign of overexercising and overusing your muscles resulting in a buildup of lactic acid. Overuse of the muscles, ligaments and tendons will cause constant inflammation in your body, heightening your chances of injury. Remember, breaking a bone or tearing a ligament is going to set you way farther back than a rest day ever will.
In addition, not fueling yourself correctly after a workout can even cause you to lose muscle mass, the opposite of your intention.
Increased Stress Level
When people exercise every day of the week, they do it with the hopes that their body will feel and look better than ever before with quicker results. However, exercising every day of the week does the exact opposite. Consistent high-intensity workouts will cause your endocrine system to start to fatigue. When this occurs, your endocrine system will start to produce cortisol. Cortisol is a steroid hormone that is produced by the zona fasciculata of the adrenal cortex inside of the adrenal gland. It’s responsible for a wide variety of processes throughout your body, but it’s mostly known as the stress hormone since it induces stress.
When you practice a healthy amount of exercise, the endocrine system keeps the cortisol in check and your body is able to cope with physical stress. However, overworking your body will also overwork your endocrine system, meaning you’ll start producing more cortisol and start feeling mentally and physically worse.
Get Sick More Often
Overexercising will compromise your immune system, and your performance levels will worsen. Maybe you’ve had a cold longer than you should or perhaps you’ve gotten the flu more times than you can count — these are clear signs that your immune system needs help. Higher cortisol and adrenaline levels tend to suppress your immune system, causing your performance to suffer. This means instead of striving and doing better at the gym, you’ll start to get worse and worse. Your improvement will regress until your body can rest and regain its health.
How to Fix It
If you identify as a gym junkie or have been to the gym one too many times this week and have been experiencing any of these symptoms, your body is probably overworked. It’s recommended you allow yourself to have at least one day of rest per week — letting your body recover from a workout is essential if you want to see positive results in your body.
If you do give yourself a day of rest but still suffer from these symptoms, you should consider trying this:
- Change your workout regimen to something less intense.
- Massage your sore muscles to help relieve tension and promote blood circulation, which will also promote the healing of soft-tissue damage.
- Hydrate to help your recovery be as efficient as possible and maximize your performance.
- Rest. This is almost as important as the exercise portion of your workout regimen.
The most important aspect of fitness is your mental and physical health. If an overly intense workout jeopardizes that, then it’s not worth it.