Exercise Overload: A Threat to Women’s Health
Negative effects of excessive exercise
More recent studies continue to reveal a positive relationship between weekly exercise scores and deaths, using long-term data, according to what was published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
The consequences of excessive exercise
A recent study once again found that large amounts of weekly exercise, such as "cardio exercises, ball sports, and weight lifting," initially led to a significant reduction in mortality risks. But these benefits began to decline for those who trained hard for more than 4.5 hours a week, according to the Times of India website.
The risks of excessive exercise
Although the risk of death was much lower than that of non-exercisers, they reaped fewer benefits from intense exercise than those who took a more measured approach to physical activity.
Negative effects of excessive exercise
According to Dr. Hisham, whether a woman or girl is a beginner or an advanced level of practicing any type of exercise, excessive exercise is considered unhealthy, and may cause the following risks:
Poor training performance
The primary goal of practicing any type of exercise is to increase strength and physical fitness, but when you exercise excessively, the result becomes a weakness in training performance, and you will never feel that you are progressing with the passage of time, and you will notice that the more you exaggerate in the exercise, the lower your athletic performance will be.
Severe body pain
You may not feel much pain or fatigue at the beginning of the excessive exercise, but over time you will notice that you feel pain in all parts of the body, whether muscles and joints. This causes significant hindrance to your exercise or even your daily routine.
Injury to joints and ligaments
Overtraining doesn’t just cause constant fatigue and exhaustion; It can even cause significant damage to the joints and ligaments, which over time can cause you severe pain and difficulty moving, and one of the most vulnerable places to injury due to excessive exercise is the lower back, the rotator cuff of the shoulder, and the knee.
Heart attacks
It is always recommended to exercise to protect the heart and increase its efficiency. But on the contrary, excessive exercise may be the worst thing you can do for your heart health. Here, one scientific study has proven that exercising excessively can increase your chance of heart attacks or sudden death.
The body’s inability to recover
After completing the exercise, the body needs sufficient time to rest in order to perform the recovery process, which may help restore the muscle fibers torn during the exercise to their normal position and rebuild them again. To be fully prepared to bear the hard work you are doing; Therefore, if you do not get enough rest time for your muscles, you will not be able to recover properly.
Difficulty getting restful sleep
Moderate exercise is one of the habits that helps you sleep soundly in the evening, but excessive exercise can also cause you to feel unable to sleep and insomnia, and thus increase the fatigue and exhaustion that you may experience during the day.
Mental stress
The body is not only affected by excessive exercise, the brain may also be affected by a number of problems that can lead to depression, anxiety, and stress. In general, the intense stress that your body is exposed to during exercise leads to problems in the nervous system, which leads to brain damage and stress and may cause a number of serious problems.
Weak immunity
If exercising strengthens the body’s immunity and protects it from diseases, then severe fatigue, which is noticeable after exercise, exposes the body to infections and various health problems.
Great effort
The body gets tired as a result of intense exercise, to the point that it may reach constant fatigue, such as lack of activity. Consequently, the individual’s movement becomes slow, his strength is weak, and his desire to exercise is almost non-existent. In addition, simple movements in sports will become difficult and require greater effort by the heart muscle in the long term.
Psychological disorders
Exercise helps improve mood. Conversely, excessive exercise destabilizes the level of hormones in the body, most notably cortisol. Accordingly, these disorders cause concentration problems, increase the chances of depression, and may lead to lack of sleep, insomnia, and excessive thinness, especially for women who seek to have a thin body.
Effective instructions to avoid the harms of excessive exercise
Dr. Hisham advises women or girls to follow the following tips as a lifestyle when exercising, as follows:
- Determine with the specialist trainer what exercises are appropriate for your body and which your body can tolerate? The body’s needs must be heard because only it can determine its tolerance.
- Meet your body’s needs for healthy, proper nutrition before and after exercising to protect and nourish muscle mass.
- Drink lukewarm water in appropriate quantities before, during, and after exercise
- Make sure to get enough sleep for 8 hours a day.
- Stop exercising as soon as you feel tired.
- Continue to rest after vigorous exercises in order to restore muscles.
- Don’t feel guilty about reducing the time or intensity of your exercise, or even not exercising at all.
- Stop hating the self-image in the mirror and pushing the body into hunger and exhaustion.
Conclusion
In conclusion, exercising in moderation is key to maintaining a healthy heart, body, and mind. Therefore, you must perform exercises regularly, respect rest periods, and follow a diet to protect and strengthen the muscles. When feeling unable to control during training, and the desire to exercise excessively, in addition to not accepting body shape and self-image, a psychiatrist must be consulted to treat these disorders, because they may destroy physical and mental health in general.
FAQs
Q: What are the negative effects of excessive exercise?
A: Excessive exercise can lead to poor training performance, severe body pain, injury to joints and ligaments, heart attacks, and other health problems.
Q: How can I avoid the harms of excessive exercise?
A: You can avoid the harms of excessive exercise by determining what exercises are appropriate for your body, meeting your body’s needs for healthy nutrition, getting enough sleep, and respecting rest periods.
Q: What are the benefits of moderate exercise?
A: Moderate exercise helps to improve mood, increase strength and physical fitness, and protect the heart and body from diseases.