Implication Of Working Out Too Much
INTRODUCTION
Maintaining a physically active lifestyle offers a good number of health benefits. These include increased productivity, improved sleep, reduced stress, a healthy heart, and enhanced immune system support. Meanwhile, excessive exercise can have serious adverse effects on your health.
Exercising is good for you. It helps you maintain a healthy weight, improve your cardiovascular system, and get rid of depression.
But putting in too many hours at the gym or training too hard for sports can make your body respond negatively.
Moderate exercise can improve your immune system, while too much exercise could suppress it.
Adverse Effects Of Excessive Exercise
Hormone Imbalance
Some hormones that can be adversely affected by excess exercise are testosterone in men and estrogen and progesterone in women. The thyroid hormone is inclusive.
Testosterone helps increase muscle mass and build bones. Estrogen and progesterone hormones control mineral absorption (specifical calcium), fertility, moods, appetite, etc. Your thyroid hormones control body temperature, weight, mood, digestion, etc. The imbalance of these hormones can cause fatigue (due to sustained high levels of cortisol), amenorrhea (which can lead to reduced bone density and fertility problems), a weakened immune system, and abnormal heart rhythms.
These factors create stress within the body.
Effect on cortisol - the stress hormone
Cortisol is essentially good and very helpful in small doses. It aids muscle recovery and reduces inflammation and injured tissue swelling.
Stress from too much exercise can heighten your cortisol levels and damage your insulin sensitivity. Increased cortisol levels lead to excess weight gain instead of losing it. It is because cortisol is a fat-storing hormone. Excess cortisol can also break down your muscle proteins and counters our reason for exercising or strength training.
Poor mental health
Exercising boosts your mood and triggers the release of dopamine. Dopamine is a feel-good hormone.
Too much workout does the opposite of the action of the dopamine hormone. Excess exercise increases the cortisol level in the body and causes severe mood swings, chronic stress, anxiety disorders, and clinical depression.
Sleeplessness
Moderate exercise helps to relax your body and promote good sleep. But excessive workout pumps excess iron and may leave you tossing and turning on your bed at night. Your muscles will be exhausted, and you may feel restless and find it hard to fall asleep.
Effect on the heart
High-intensity training can acutely increase the risk for sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death in individuals with underlying cardiac disease. Over workouts can increase the risk of heart rhythm disorders.
Effect on women
Women may develop a condition known as the FEMALE ATHLETE TRIAD that involves loss of menstruation, eating disorders, osteoporosis, or loss of bone mineral density. These symptoms often develop from combining too much workout and restricted calorie intake.
Effect on men
For men, too much exercise decreases libido. Decreased libido can be due to body fatigue and lower testosterone levels. Men and women who overexercise increase their risk of overuse injuries, such as tendinitis and stress fractures. These injuries develop from repetitive trauma.
Adrenal Fatigue
It is essential to get rest in between exercises to maintain hormone health. Adrenal fatigue can result from too many workouts without rest. Depleted adrenal glands resulting from adrenal fatigue stop the production of essential stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline.
CONCLUSION
Experts recommend moderate-intensity workouts not more than 150 minutes or vigorous-intensity training of 75 minutes a week. The exercise can be 30 minutes each day, four to five days a week. Excessive workouts can not be encouraged.
