Overtraining Will Kill Your Results

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I personally love the Bell curve and all that it represents. Take for example the people in America. On one end of the Bell curve we have the standard American: overweight and underactive. On the other side we have an athletic American: in shape and most likely overactive. What do I mean by overactive you are probably thinking? Let’s start by talking a little about how your body works.

The human body is an amazing work of art. Every day for hundreds of years, all over the planet, thousands of the world’s smartest people (doctors and research scientists) have been TRYING to figure it out. One of the most impressive things they have discovered is that the harder you work the body (within reason of course) the better it becomes! Try doing that with your car and see what happens. There is a certain amount of your physiology that is based in your parents genetic contribution to who you are, but the vast majority of who and what you are today, is nurture, not nature. What this means is that you are the end product of every single interaction with the world and the subsequent remodeling your body went through to accommodate to those interactions.

Think about it for just a second. Remember when you cut your big toe on a sprinkler while walking barefoot through the park back in 5th grade? Take a look at that same toe right now and gently run your finger over that scar that you’ve carried with you all these years. Let me ask you this: why do you know that 5×5=25? It is because while sitting in Miss Larson’s class, you had to write your multiplication tables over and over and over again until the cells in your brain created and reinforced a connection that has stuck with you to this very day. You are the product of all of your life’s interactions. Interesting isn’t it?

So what does this have to do with being overactive? While our bodies are always looking to find a state of homeostasis, the truth is, our environment is ever changing so that homeostasis is a moving target. Take for example doing a push-up. The first time you attempt to do one, it is a foreign movement and you struggle to not only keep your body straight but also to push yourself up against gravity’s pull. After the challenge is over, the adaptations begin! The body recognizes that it was just faced with a new challenge and it will now seek a way to make it easier should you have to attempt it again in the future. Your brain has to establish new pathways to control the muscles more efficiently, the muscle cells use some of the freely available amino acids floating in your blood stream to build themselves a little stronger and even your blood vessels adapt to allow for greater blood flow to carry oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. This happens every day with everything you encounter as the body seeks the path of least resistance.

Not too much, not too little

The problem arises when we purposefully attempt to force our bodies to be what want. Whether this be a cosmetic change of fat loss/muscle gain or a performance goal like running a marathon. While the goals seem innocuous in their healthy appearance, they can in fact become detrimental if not worked towards in a logical, science founded manner. Work just hard enough to elicit the desired compensatory response and then rest adequately for the body to be 100% ready to go again. Sadly while the sedentary Americans err on the side of undertraining, our overzealous athletic Americans are rampantly overtraining and not allowing for enough rest time before starting again. In this case, as is with most, more is not better! I love to tell my clients to remember the age old story of Goldilocks and the three bears. If you are in doubt when it comes to “how much” as it pertains to your food or exercise, go with Goldilocks’ thought process: Not too much, not too little, just right.

Simple enough, wouldn’t you agree?

by Jason Parsons via The Fight Mechanic - Jason Parsons