PROJ 3 :
Burn up, don’t Burn out
Pedaling down a greatly inclined slope with vengeance, I easily took to speeds of 50 kmph,changed the gear to the 5th ,and let the bicycle cruise its way down. The grin on my face wore off as quick as the endorphin high lasted. I encountered an evil pothole bang in the middle of road ,in an attempt to avoid it, jammed the break..only the front brake. The next thing I knew I was on the tarmac with a bleeding mouth and chipped off my two incisors.
Good Morning fellow-smedians and welcome guests.
Little did I know, that thanks to my insufficient knowledge about the cycle I was riding, I jammed the front break causing it to lock and the back tyre continued to rotate causing a double somersault and a hard hit to my jaw. Had to undergo two painful root canal treatments the same day , followed by ceramic root caps for the incisors that cost me a bomb. All due to my over-confidence .
Exercise may not always do you good. More often than not, due to insufficient knowledge and ignoring signs of your body complaining we tend to overdo it. A growing concern of obesity and health complication due to stressful lifestyles drive us to desperately seek exercise of any sort without completing understanding the good and most importantly the evils of it.
I am a obsessive runner, let me rephrase, I was an obsessive runner. For the past three years, I unflinching wore my shoes at 5 am in the morning and ran till my hearts content. Gradually pushing it to limits my body complained to and I didn't pay attention. Last May, the alarm sounded, I got the harsh message of over-exercising. I ran the 10km run in Bangalore with a subtle nagging knee pain which I continually ignored. There was no satisfaction of having finished the run in a good time as my knee was paining intolerably. The doctors diagnosed it as a meniscal tear and I had to get a surgery down to trim the tear. A minor procedure ,but the healing time took me six months. For a hyper-active person like me, it was six months of hell. Now I’m back to a better regime of balanced exercise and I would like to share the ills of over-exercising and signs to notice when you know you are overdoing it.
Exercising can become addictive due to the physiological effects of endorphin, a hormone that makes one happy and more due to the psychological and positive physical effects.How do you know if you are over- training? The body is constantly communicating with you so all one needs to do is to learn to read its signals. If you feel energetic and charged after a workout session, you know you are doing something right. On the contrary, if you feel drained or fatigued, the body is hinting that it needs a rest.When we stop listening to our body and start thinking more is better, that is when the problem begins. There are four basic components that go in planning a workout schedule: exercise type, intensity, frequency and duration. As a rule of thumb, change/increase one component at a time and follow that schedule for a couple of weeks. But an over-enthusiastic person may increase two or more components at the same time leading to stress on the body.It is relatively easy to guess if you are over-training. If you’re hitting the snooze button often or having trouble sleeping and feeling exhausted throughout the day are two crucial signs. As important as it is to stimulate muscle building with hard exercise, it is equally important to recover with rest until the muscle is no longer sore. Over-training definitely leads to weight loss. The body starts conserving energy instead of expending. So even when you are burning more calories, it does not mean you are losing fat weight; you are only losing glycogen and precious muscle tissue. And that persistent joint ache cannot be pushed off as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), which usually goes away in a couple of days. This continuous pain either indicates poor technique or over-training.
To emphasize, firstly,”Research” on your exercise techniques,equipment,the good or ill it has on your body, any special dietary requirements (specifically the amount of protein to be increased). and secondly, “Listen” to your body and when it complains. Drawing this to my experiences I should have known better about the disc brakes in the cycle before taking on a massive downslope and I should have payed more attention to my nagging knee pain before aggrevating it.
Balance your routine to 30-45 minutes a day, alternating aggressive workout with conditional mind-body workout to heal your mind and body. Remember the primary motivation to exercise is to stay fit and healthy and not to drastically lose weight.
