How Exercising So Much Is Harming your Progress!

Most people think the more exercise you do the better your chances of achieving your goals. I'm here to tell you this is not true. Exercise is just like anything else in life, it can be over done. In my time as a PT I have known many people to go all in as soon as they start training as they think that is the best way to maximise results as quickly as possible. However, when you come to a point where you are no longer making any progress what do you do? Exercise more? Eat less Calories? You run out of options with this kind of approach and as a result will stunt your progress. This is equally unhelpful in the reverse as too little exercise won't elicit enough change and there is a sweet spot to maximising your results.

If I take a person that is 100lbs overweight and inactive and absolutely hammer them with circuits and cardio based lifting they are just going to burn out unbelievably fast and as a result their Central Nervous System (CNS) will be fried, their recovery will be sub par and their sleep will take a dive because they are constantly wired by the cortisol left in their body.

The most appropriate way to get someone into training is to slowly scale their training so that they are developing from where they are now. They may not be active at all which is fine, just increasing that activity a small amount will allow them to start their journey and see results. Not everything is max out training and crash dieting. It should all be a slow steady journey with plenty of opportunities to scale when you hit plateaus. This allows for continuous progressive overload which is essential in any fitness regimen.

If you are already training too much and you feel constantly wired with poor sleep and poor recovery what is the best thing for you to do? Stop everything you are doing? No. The most appropriate thing to do is scale down to a more reasonable amount of exercise, this is very dependent on the level of training you are currently undertaking and where you are in achieving your goals. The moral of this story is that harder doesn't always mean better.

If you have any questions on the above or want to discuss your health and fitness goals please get in contact at jacobpttelford@gmail.com.