When Does Exercise Become Unhealthy?
I’m sure you have heard the great benefits that come with exercise, but can exercise become unhealthy? The answer is Yes! In general though, most people are not overexercising or addicted to exercise. Research suggests that 2-3 hours of moderate to vigorous exercise is needed to reduce the risk of things like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. The benefits of exercise appear to plateau at 5 hours. This means that moderate-vigorous over 5 hours will not necessarily reduce your risk of those diseases and conditions.
Types of unhealthy exercise
There are a couple different types of unhealthy exercise patterns such as:
Compulsive Exercise: Exercising because you feel like you have to, you are obsessed, and need to exercise to lessen the feelings of stress and/or mental health issues no matter the negative consequences.This can be related to an exercise addiction.
Excessive exercise: Above the healthy exercise in terms of intensity, duration, and frequency much like overtraining.
Compensatory exercise: Feeling like you need to do exercise to compensate for things in your life like eating something unhealthy or doing extra exercise because you didn’t workout yesterday.
Signs of unhealthy exercise
Some signs and symptoms of unhealthy exercise may include feeling like exercise is the most important thing in your life, and not being able to stop exercising when sick or injured. You may feel like your exercise routines are very habitual, inflexible, and not changeable for social or work commitments.
You may also feel like you need to exercise to give yourself permission to eat certain things, or make up for missing a workout yesterday. You may also be afraid that if you stop exercising at higher levels/amounts you may feel more stressed, anxious, or low energy.
You may notice you have some of these signs and symptoms, but not all. Unhealthy exercise patterns happen on a spectrum, with some people experiencing it more than others.
Body Response
The body responds well to the stress of exercise and bounces back to improve strength, and overall fitness. However, if you do not give the body time to recover you lose some of the good effects of fitness as your body does not allow you to repair and rebuild your muscles. When your training exceeds your body's ability to cope and repair you enter overtraining. If you want to learn more about overtraining, check out our previous blog posts on overtraining specifically.
How can physio help
Physiotherapists can help identify different types of unhealthy exercise, and help you re-establish healthy exercise patterns. However, you may need to talk to your GP and/or reach out to a therapist or psychologist. Our physiotherapists in Dublin 4 can refer you on to these specialists and help you rebuild a healthy relationship with exercise and overtraining. Do not hesitate to reach out to us today with any questions or to book an appointment.
References:
British Journal of Sports Medicine: “Black Box Warning: when exercises is not medicine” (Narducci, 2023)
Irish Times: Is it possible to exercise too much? And how much is too much? (Aschwanden, 2022)
Physiotherapy
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