Exercise is good for you. It builds strong muscles, a healthy heart, flexibility, stamina, and even makes you happier by boosting mood and energy levels. On the other hand, exercising too much has its downsides too. It can increase your risk of getting sick – especially during cold and flu season.
If you’re a person who works out hard, it may be time to rethink how much and how hard you’re working out and take some steps to avoid overtraining. A study carried out on elite swimmers showed that when they exercised intensely, antibody levels in saliva that protect against infection dropped significantly. Athletes who worked out hard also had a decrease in natural killer cells and lymphocytes. Both of these cells are important for warding off viral illness. When you do an intense exercise session – particularly if it’s prolonged – you run the risk of landing on the sidelines with a bad cold or flu.
The good news is moderate exercise stimulates the immune system and helps the body fight off colds and flu. The key is to avoid overtraining and allow adequate recovery time between sessions. It’s okay to work out at a high intensity – as long as you don’t do it every day.
On high intensity training days, it’s important to eat well to supply your body with antioxidants to repair the free radical damage that occurs with intense exercise. Foods high in protein and complex carbs are they mainstay of an athletes diet, but fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are also important because they’re rich in antioxidants.
One way to avoid overtraining is to alternate high intensity exercise sessions with low intensity ones. For example if you run five miles one day, do a yoga or pilates class the next. This keeps you moving, but still gives your body a chance to recover. In fact, some studies show that yoga exercises boost immune function and help to protect against colds and flu.
Another way to avoid overtraining and the risks of too much exercise is to keep an exercise diary. Write down the training you do each day along with how you feel before and after exercising. If you’re unusually tired or sore on many days or experience frequent cold symptoms, it’s time to adjust your workout. A regular diary will make it easier for you to tell when you’re exercising too much before it becomes a problem.
Keep exercising, but take some steps to avoid overtraining. It’ll help you stay in the game.
Are you using the correct weightlifting techniques? – If your weight lifting techniques or form are incorrect, not only will your training retarded, you are also inviting injury. When you exercise you must think and focus on the working muscles, instead of mindlessly repeating the motions, do take note of how you perform each exercise and rep. Do so with deliberation and at the beginning and end of every lift, pause and squeeze the muscles you are exercising. Mind and muscle must connect! Never never use momentum of the swing to lift the weights and let gravity pull the weight down. That is why you must lift slowly and lower slowly feeling the tension in your muscles and resisting the load all the time.
Use Free Weights – Most machines do not involve as much of the synergistic muscles (supporting muscles) as free weights do and so are less effective than free weights to recruit more muscle fibers to build bigger muscle mass. Synergistic muscles are the smaller muscles that aid the main muscles in balance and strength in each lift. Machines have its uses, but for beginners (with an experienced spotter) and do use free weights more often.
Workout with compound exercises – Compound exercises are exercises that involve 2 or more joint movements and thereby employing bigger muscles and more synergistic muscles to boot. Bench presses, dead lifts, squats, and chin ups amongst others are fantastic compound exercises. To add icing to the cake, because of the massive utilization of your muscles, you will pant, puff and sweat more. That means your routine also has a cardio effect and you will burn body fat calories even hours after you stepped out of the gym.
Incorporate a vegetable into every meal. Peas, broccoli, asparagus, red, yellow or green bell peppers, spinach – you name it, vegetables provide nutrients and fiber.Use more beans and legumes, and less meat. Chickpeas, lentils and beans of all types are good sources of fiber and protein. Use my Anti-Inflammatory Food Pyramid to learn more about healthy varieties of these pantry staples.Serve up whole grains. Brown rice and bulgur wheat provide a delicious, grainy taste and texture – and have more fiber and protein than their white counterparts. Choose true, relatively intact whole grains like these over grains that have been ground into flour.Switch sweets. Instead of soda, stock the pantry with sparkling waters. Pour fruit juice into a pitcher and dilute it to lessen the sugar content. Stock your kitchen with fresh, whole fruits, and leave the cookies in the store.
