Is There Such Thing as Too Much Exercise?

You’ve heard about the impor­tance of exer­cise in stay­ing healthy. It’s one of the best things you can do for your health, and it helps you main­tain a healthy weight, reduce your risk of chron­ic dis­ease, strength­en your mus­cles and bones, improve the health of your brain, and enhance your abil­i­ty to go about your day-to-day activities. 

With all the ben­e­fits of exer­cise, you may won­der, ​“Is more always better?” 

As it turns out, there can be too much of a good thing when it comes to exer­cise. Engag­ing in more exer­cise than your body can han­dle can lead to a range of prob­lems both phys­i­cal­ly and mentally. 

Here are 4 ways too much exer­cise can dam­age your health – and how to find the right amount of exer­cise for you. 

1. Too Much Exer­cise Can Cause Injuries 

Exer­cise works your mus­cles, but too much of it can over­work them, cre­at­ing new or wors­en­ing exist­ing injuries. 

Often referred to as overuse injuries, exer­cis­ing too much can cre­ate repet­i­tive trau­ma that caus­es mus­cle and joint injuries, such as ten­dini­tis (inflam­ma­tion of ten­dons between your bones and mus­cles) and stress frac­tures (tiny cracks that occur in bones). 

Being over­tired from exces­sive exer­cise can also make it hard to con­cen­trate. Depend­ing on how you’re exer­cis­ing, this can be dan­ger­ous. For instance, dur­ing strength train­ing, you could over­load cer­tain mus­cles or even drop a weight if you’re not pay­ing attention. 

Do you think you have an overuse injury? Make an appoint­ment with a Duly Sports Med­i­cine expert today to pre­vent and treat exer­cise-relat­ed injuries. 

2. Too Much Exer­cise Can Lead to Poor Nutrition 

Exer­cise is a great way to burn extra calo­ries and boost your metab­o­lism, help­ing you to main­tain a healthy weight. How­ev­er, if you overex­er­cise, you may not give your body the fuel it needs. 

Whether you’re run­ning, bik­ing, play­ing ten­nis, or danc­ing, your body uses a com­bi­na­tion of pro­tein, fat, and car­bo­hy­drates to fuel activ­i­ty. If you exer­cise too much, you might not have enough fuel to keep going in a healthy way. 

Not eat­ing enough for your lev­el of exer­cise can lead to fatigue, trou­ble sleep­ing, sore­ness, slow mus­cle recov­ery, and hor­mon­al problems. 

Even if you eat enough but don’t eat a healthy diet to sup­port your lev­el of exer­cise, you can dam­age your health in the long term. Eat­ing processed foods and emp­ty calo­ries along­side exer­cise can increase your risk of dying ear­li­er com­pared to some­one who eats healthy and exercises. 

3. Too Much Exer­cise Can Cause Heart Problems 

Phys­i­cal activ­i­ty strength­ens your heart, but you can work it too hard by overex­er­cis­ing. Extreme exer­cise over time can lead to heart dam­age and prob­lems with your heart’s rhythm. This is espe­cial­ly true if you have a genet­ic fac­tor that puts you at an increased risk. 

After a sin­gle extreme exer­cise event, like run­ning a marathon, blood sam­ples of run­ners have shown signs of heart dam­age. While this usu­al­ly goes away with rest and recov­ery, repeat­ed extreme exer­cise can lead to changes in your heart’s struc­ture, such as scar­ring or thick­er walls. 

What’s more, in peo­ple who have cer­tain types of heart dis­ease, high-inten­si­ty exer­cise can raise the risk of heart rhythm dis­or­ders, such as atri­al fib­ril­la­tion. If you’ve pre­vi­ous­ly had a heart attack, talk to your health­care provider before start­ing exer­cise again, and make sure to begin phys­i­cal activ­i­ty safe­ly. 

4. Too Much Exer­cise Can Be a Sign of Addiction 

A psy­cho­log­i­cal or phys­i­cal depen­dence on some­thing – even if it’s a good thing – is a sign of addic­tion. Exer­cis­ing can be addic­tive because of the plea­sure it brings by releas­ing hor­mones called endor­phins and dopamine. Even­tu­al­ly, when the impact of the hor­mones sub­sides, you’re left crav­ing more. 

While being addict­ed to exer­cise is less com­mon in the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion, it’s more like­ly to occur in peo­ple who have eat­ing dis­or­ders or anx­i­ety disorders. 

Signs of being addict­ed to exer­cise include: 

• Exer­cis­ing too much 
• Exer­cis­ing too intensely 
• Exer­cis­ing through injuries, ill­ness, extreme weath­er, or fatigue 
• Plan­ning your entire day around exercise 
• Feel­ing irri­ta­ble when you can’t exercise 

How to Avoid Overtraining 

Recov­ery is impor­tant no mat­ter how much you exer­cise. To get the right amount of exer­cise and rest, start by lis­ten­ing to your body. If you’re tired, hurt, anx­ious, or oth­er­wise unwell, take a rest day or two – and get back to some light exer­cise when you feel up to it. 

Oth­er ways to avoid the dan­gers of exer­cis­ing too much include: 

• Rest­ing for a min­i­mum of 6 hours between exer­cise sessions 
• Tak­ing at least one rest day per week 
• Decreas­ing the length and inten­si­ty of exer­cise lead­ing up to competitions 
• Eat­ing enough to sup­port your lev­el of exercise 
• Stay­ing hydrat­ed through­out workouts 
• Get­ting at least 8 hours of sleep per night
  

If you feel you can’t con­trol how much you exer­cise, talk to your pri­ma­ry care provider. They can help you make a plan mov­ing for­ward, which may involve talk­ing to a men­tal health provider. 

Exer­cise is undoubt­ed­ly a good thing and an impor­tant way to stay healthy. But too much exer­cise can over­work your body and mind. By giv­ing your­self enough rest, you can get back to your exer­cise rou­tine in a safe and pro­duc­tive way.