Back in the gym this week and trying to keep to my new, less crazy fitness plan, I realized I had been overtraining in more ways than one.
I wrote in my last post about the importance of rest in between workouts, and previously about the negative consequences of training too often without allowing your muscles to heal. But there is another aspect to overtraining that I didn’t think about until this week, and that’s overextending myself in the moment.
When I work out, I want to get the most out of the experience; to build the most muscle or stamina and know that I will really be getting results from the efforts I put in. But this is another area in which balance is key; running too hard or lifting too-heavy weights is not going to do anything but set me back.
Yesterday at the gym, I did my typical interval training while running on the treadmill: several sprints interspersed with walking for recovery. Previously, I had been warming up with a run at about 6 mph, going up to 9 mph for the sprints, and then gasping for air as I recovered at around 3 mph. This time I warmed up at the same 6 mph speed, which is a comfortable jog for me. But instead of pushing myself to all the way to 9 mph, I decided to try slightly less speed, only 8 mph. That made a huge difference. I was able to extend the length of my sprint intervals, going from 1 minute all the way up to 2 minutes; whereas at 9 mph I had only been able to do a 1.5 minutes at the very upper reaches of my ability. But even more importantly, I was not dead after 2 minutes of running at 8 mph. I didn’t need to walk at a slow speed for a long time and try not to make embarrassing whimpering noises as I struggled to recover. I was able to, within the minute, accelerate back to my comfort zone of 6 mph and then go for another round of sprint. Normally after 3-5 sprints at 9 mph, I could feel my body suffused with fatigue. Doing them at 8 mph energized me; thus, in the spirit of still pushing myself I decided to do the last one at 9 mph, but for that one I went back down to only 1 minute.
I had a similar experience with the weights. After my run, I went to do some upper body weight lifting. I had previously been using the highest possible weight setting at which I could complete 8 reps. I decided to back it off a little and just do one setting under that for the machines I used: the overhead shoulder press, the mid-row, and the chest fly. Like with my intervals, I found that afterwards I felt much better. I felt that I had exercised my muscles, but hadn’t destroyed them.
The more experience I have with serious training and exercise, the more I learn about my body and its limits. Finding the optimal level at which to push myself is sometimes difficult, but I’m learning every day.
Urban Equestrian 