Basic Pursuits

For people who are lifetime exercisers, their most important characteristic is consistency. They attain consistency because the exercise makes them feel good. Ask a hundred of these folks why they exercise, the first thing you'll hear from most is, "because it makes me feel good."

A big hinderance to consistency is overtraining. Over-training builds up a residue of stress that has to be relieved somehow. The paradox of stress causing your body to react healthily and stress that causes your body to slump badly. When stress gets you down, you might be tired all the time, irritable, sleep poorly, be depressed. You might take on that strained look. Darkening eyes. Sooner or later this self-induced stress causes you to quit. Either you can't take it anymore or you get injured. I have long thought that these types of injuries are induced by some mechanism in the person that says, "Stop. I've had enough."

So how to manage? Take time off from exercising. Modify your exercise. Lift less weight. Shorten your rounds if you are an interval trainer. Shorten your route or just slow down if you are covering distance biking or cycling or whatever. Maybe even best, take a vacation from exercise. Just like with work, you'll feel better about your exercise after you return to it from a reasonable break.

Over training is an issue all across the conditioning spectrum. Good trainers strive to give their athletes the optimal amount of beneficial stress to stimulate the growth of capillaries, hemoglobin, etc. At the same time they enforce strict periods of rest to allow the body to restock its supply of glycogen and to repair the countless muscle tears. Skip the rest you will get a bunch of touble. Overtraining woes may include irritablity, sleep problems, sex problems, appetite problems, appearance problems.

No exerciser, no matter how well conditioned, can do without extended bouts of meaningful rest. How much? Enough to restock the energy supplies and repair the damage. At least that much.

Do you know which atheletes pay the least attention to getting the right amount of rest and suffer the most because of it? Brand new ones. People who are just starting an exercise program. They push too hard, don't get enough rest, and wind up hating the whole idea of exercise. Then they quit. Then over time they really suffer as their bodies are deprived the benefits of exercise.

Remember. Most people who have successful life-habit exercise programs do it because it makes them feel better. How else could they keep it up day after day year after year? Do what they do. At the first sign that your exercise program makes you feel worse, rest, rest, rest. Then start back reasonbly. This is especially true when you are beginning an exercise program. The more you overdo, the more your body will howl for you to quit and you will.

So in the beginning don't  exert yourself. Go for consistency. Do as little as necessary to be comfortable so you can do it regularly. Walk 10 minutes, but do it regularly. Put it on your calendar. As time passes add minutes to your 10-minute session. If you add minutes reasonably, more will feel good. At some point you'll look forward to exercising. Then you'll reach a point when you can't imagine not exercising.

Just be sure to get enough rest.

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Photo by Dave