How Much Exercise is TOO Much?

Betty Rocker (00:16):
What’s up, rock stars Coach Betty Rocker here. Hey, thanks so much for joining me today. Okay. I know I have mentioned that over training can really undermine your results and you’ll always hear me saying how balanced training is the way to get the best results. But what does over training actually mean for you? Is it okay to combine other exercises with the program you’re currently doing? And what about running or pickleball or swimming or other recreational activities you enjoy on top of your regularly scheduled workouts? And here’s another one I get all the time that’s totally related. Can you just combine two different programs at the same time to get twice the results when it comes to exercise? How much is too much?

(01:05)
The answers may surprise you. Now my first answer is specificity, because what might be too much for one person will be just right for someone else. So we have to think about your specific situation and ask ourselves a couple of questions. Number one, is what you’re doing effective for you today based on your current level of fitness and your ability to recover? And number two, are you taking the recovery you need with your life stage in mind? So I wanna talk briefly about inflammation because over training can cause more inflammation in the body than it can recover from easily. And this is a really key thing to understand. So what is this inflammation that we’re creating with our workouts? Well, first inflammation is just this defense mechanism that your body deploys in response to injury or some type of stress to your system. So if you bang your elbow or you cut your finger, your body sends in the troops of healing cells to surround and protect the area of injury, you might notice some swelling or heat and that comes from the fluid that those helper cells travel inside of.

(02:23)
Now, inflammation can be acute as in temporary, or it can be what’s called chronic, as in ongoing, your body’s troops can like end up in a constant state of deployment due to things like, you know, toxic substances in your body or around your body like cigarette smoke or alcohol, say chronic infections or um, poor gut health. Maybe it’s exposure to environmental toxins. Um, and yes, chronic over training. So if you never let your body recover fully from your workouts or you just keep working out too much, you’re gonna have this prolonged state of inflammation. And while activating our body’s inflammatory response periodically is a good thing, a healthy thing, activating it for prolonged periods can be really harmful to your system and lead to things like chronic fatigue, um, aches and pains that don’t go away, mood disorders even, and things like weight gain because it will absolutely affect how you’re able to recover from your workouts and really limit the results that you’ll be able to see.

(03:31)
So this is one of the big reasons why I want to address the importance of balancing your training and really having some ideas about what is right for you because this isn’t a one size fits all, and I want just to empower you to be able to make the best decision for yourself each day and each week. So when we exercise, we’re creating a type of stress to our system and that causes some little micro tears in the muscle tissue that the body then has to repair from, and it triggers our inflammatory response, right? It’s this repair process that actually is responsible for what’s building our muscle. And the stress we create from a workout is the challenge that our body kind of comes back from stronger. But you’ve heard me say exercise is a healthy stress when we are healthy because if our system is under strain from something else already we’re already using our body’s repair resources to support us in other ways.

(04:32)
So adding a workout on top of that might just push us over the edge, or it might make it a little tougher for us to recover from the workout, which means we won’t actually get the benefit of new muscle tissue and we won’t optimally burn body fat either. We just wanna be careful not to spread ourselves too thin and remember that a workout is not a separate event in our body from say, a weakened immune system because everything is connected. So if your body is still using its reserves to heal you from being sick, for example, it doesn’t pull all the ingredients it needs to repair you and help you recover from your workout from thin air, it pulls those reserves from the same place. It’s pulling to help you get over being sick. And if there isn’t enough in the, you know, bank to support you for either thing, you are going to stay sick longer and you won’t get the benefit of the workout.

(05:26)
So this is why I asked you those questions at the beginning of this conversation. Let’s take a little bit closer look at them now. So number one is what you’re doing effective for you today based on your current level of fitness and your body’s ability to recover? So you can ask yourself things like, did you get a good night’s sleep? If not, take it down a notch. Are you under say, heavy stress from work or life? Here’s another example of where you might wanna back off a little bit. Have you recently been ill or think you might be coming down with a cold? Here’s a good example of when you might wanna back off a little bit. Are you still sore from your last workout? Dial it down. Where are you in your monthly cycle, if you’re in the second half of it, say after ovulation or close to getting your period, you might feel better by backing off a little bit.

(06:21)
And this is just because our immune system is already activated before our period as the body prepares to bleed. So you’ve already got a little bit of impact to that whole system. So in general, you just won’t get better results going harder when your body is already using its reserves. In all of these instances, you may have a higher amount of inflammation in your body and that’s, and that’s a healthy response in our internal system. You know, being under duress in some way and it’s a natural process that helps us come back stronger, but not when we overload it. And that’s why you wanna consider that a workout is also going to create that inflammatory response. And we have to remember that the way we see results from a workout comes from after the workout when we repair the muscle tissue that we trained and replenish our nutrient building blocks with the food that we eat.

(07:16)
Your current fitness level is also a contributing factor in your body’s ability to handle the load you give it and your ability to recover from it well. So say you’re a conditioned regular exerciser, it may just be easier for you to recover than for someone who’s newer to exercise. Just like it will be tougher for you to recover if you do something much harder or more intense than you’ve been used to before. Your level of fitness really does play a big role in your ability to handle the load you give yourself. I always recommend a moderate approach while ramping things up, whether that means you’re doing workouts that are the same length as before, but you’re adding more resistance or maybe you’re gradually increasing the time that you train. I mean, it’s ideal to give the body new stimulus, but to also respect the process that the body goes through as it recovers from the stress of exercise,

(08:09)
and as you build that stamina and strength. So we get results by shifting our body composition, which is our muscle to fat ratio, and to support that muscle tissue we wanna combine strength training or resistance training and some form of explosive cardio. And together that helps drive the body to adapt and respond. And of course provided we also rest and take in the right nutrients. This whole exercise process requires some stress to our system. And it’s exactly why you wanna pay attention to not over training because you’ll actually sabotage your ability to lose body fat and gain muscle tissue. This is why I never recommend pairing two programs at the same time. Often different programs train different body parts on different days, and if you mash them up, you end up never really fully recovering for your next session. And while you might be able to get away with this for a little while, it will eventually catch up with you.

(09:04)
I feel like we tend to be a little impatient to see results sometimes. And if our perception is that our result are coming just from our workouts, it’s easy to get into that mindset of where you notice weight gain and you start to think, I should do more exercise. I should start running more, or I should do this bonus workout on top of my current program. And then it turns out you’re sore all the time or you’re having trouble sleeping and you’re still not seeing the weight come off. And this is just, you know, because your body can’t recover effectively and you’re just in this kind of constant state of inflammation. And a workout is a healthy stress when we are healthy, but there’s so much more that goes into how we get great results from our training. And a lot of that comes down to the way we approach the training, how intense it is, how hard it is, and how challenging it is for us, and then how we recover around it, how we fuel around it, how we rest around it, right?

(10:00)
So if we revisit the question of is what you’re doing effective for you today? Now we know when a workout might not be effective for us, right? If we’re under some kind of stress or strain or we’re not fully recovered from our last workout. But what about the other side of that question? Like when can you dial it up to make a workout more challenging for yourself? We talked about getting poor sleep, but what if you had a great night’s sleep and you are well recovered? I mean, go for it in your workout. What if you’re just feeling really good and really energized? I mean, go for it. Go after that workout. Go hard. Listen to your body when you have more energy, go after it. Because going after it is also an important aspect of our training to really drive the adaptations in our body tissue on a well-rested body.

(10:49)
We wanna create enough of a stimulus that we can respond to. This is why I teach rep ranges in my workout programs a lot to help you find a stimulus that’s right for you and your current fitness level. So if I told you to use the same amount of weight I was using in a dumbbell curl, for some people that would be too heavy and for others it would be too light. So instead of comparing how much we’re all using to each other, we simply all work within a rep range and find the right amount of weight for ourselves on any given day. So if I tell you do 8 to 12 reps and I want you to choose a weight where you can do at least 8 reps, but it’s very hard to go past 12 reps, you literally can barely do it. That helps you pick the right amount for yourself.

(11:36)
Then over time, you’ll notice that the same amount of weight you chose at the beginning where you could do say 10 reps, now you can do 12 reps with it. So what do you do? You choose a heavier weight, right? And I might guide you in various rep ranges as you build your strength like a 6 to 10 rep range or a 5 to 8 range or even lower. And the point is that you progressively challenge yourself over time with various amounts of resistance. Even body weight moves can get progressively harder. Think about push ups. We can start against the wall or down on our knees or on one knee or on our toes, or even elevating our feet, right? We can build up in the time we’re spending doing the move, creating more of a stimulus for the body with time rather than resistance. We can switch to a single side move at a time like single leg squats, placing more weight on one side at a time.

(12:27)
So when you’re asking yourself if this workout is effective for you today and you’re feeling really energized and good, make sure that you’re getting the most out of the workout. A lot of times if you’re not feeling really challenged, you might just need a greater stimulus, like heavier resistance, or you might need to train a little longer. If you have a short workout, do it again. So you can continue to train the same muscle groups to fatigue before you rest them. Because here’s another thing I see a lot. You know, people do random workouts from YouTube or have a plan, but they don’t really follow it and then they struggle to see good results because they’re not taking their rest days or they’re adding in random workouts all the time without any idea of whether it’s challenging them effectively or they never allow the muscle groups they’ve trained to fully repair and recover.

(13:19)
And conversely, they never really give those muscle groups a chance to fully express and fully get challenged. And all of this can kind of lead to them not really seeing great results or maybe staying in a state of chronic inflammation if they’re not resting enough. So we just really have to watch out for that and it’s something that we want to really avoid, right? We want that balanced training to focus on. So back to you and whether the workout is effective for you today, it really depends on how you feel today and how much stress your body is under. If you’re feeling good, go for it. Make it challenging for yourself by increasing the resistance or increasing the time that you train. And remember not to judge yourself. It’s totally natural to have some ebb and flow with your energy over the course of the month.

(14:06)
And over time as different life events happen, say our hormones shift and change, our energy levels shift and change for a variety of reasons. Don’t judge yourself if last week you were doing a certain amount of resistance and this week you can’t do as much. It’s okay. Progression is not linear all the time, right? Sometimes we wanna ebb and flow back off so that we can come back stronger. This is the whole purpose of rest and recovery, to prepare ourselves to hit our next workout as hard as we can, right? So let’s explore question number two that we wanna ask ourselves. Are you taking the recovery you need with your life stage in mind? Because you might be doing just fine with adding some extra running in a few times a week on top of your regular workouts while you’re still in your cycling years.

(14:54)
But as you get into perimenopause, you start to notice you’re having more aches and pains than you used to. Maybe instead of noticing you’re staying nice and tight, you’re starting to notice your body’s feeling a little looser or flabbier. And this is a sure sign that the training you are doing may be overwhelming your body’s ability to recover effectively. Now, the reason that this starts to happen and starts to change of course, is because we start to have less estrogen and progesterone cycling in our system. And that estrogen really gave us an edge when it came to recovery and resilience with our workouts. And your progesterone was really supportive for things like bone remodeling and those two fluctuated back and forth. Now as they start to decline and you don’t have that same um, resilience happening in your body, we’re gonna wanna start to think about our recovery a lot more strategically than we used to because the inflammatory response from a workout can more quickly overwhelm us in the absence of those hormones.

(15:57)
And this becomes even more pronounced as we get into the post menopause years when those hormones really do flatline. So it’s really, really important to be paying attention to your rest and recovery and your workouts and the specificity with which you train. You wanna make those workouts really hard for you on the days that you have the good energy. You wanna really challenge your body and really challenge yourself so that you can get that adaptive response and then you wanna recover, right? So this is the type of programming I write for my ladies who are in the peri and postmenopausal years, and I really help you get that polarization in your training that really helps to drive the results as we lose those higher levels of the hormones. It’s also really important to be thinking about your nutrient intake. This is gonna be a big part of how you’re gonna see results, right?

(16:49)
Like we just don’t absorb the amino acids from our protein as easily as we age. And if we’re getting into the perimenopause years or we’re already in post menopause, we need more of the amino acids from our protein rich foods to do the same amount of work as before. So we actually need to be eating a little bit more protein to help support the stimulus we’re getting from our workout and to help support that repair and recovery process. Because that’s a lot of what those aminos are gonna do in the body. They’re gonna go in and help support the repair process of the muscle tissue that we break down during the workout. And it’s just essential that you’re also getting in those quality carbs, the healthy fat and the balance of all of these nutrients together is what’s gonna help you have the energy and the drive that you need.

(17:38)
But as we get into these later life stages, it’s really important to think about the quality of the nutrients, the quality of the carbohydrates. For instance, we want those fiber rich carbs, we wanna avoid the sugary carbs, because we’re just gonna see and feel the impact of the more processed sugary stuff a lot faster if we indulge in it because our estrogen has a big impact on how insulin sensitive we are. And I mean, it’s not like you’re supposed to automatically know all of this stuff. I mean, you’re just following along with whatever program you have maybe and doing what was shown to work for you in the past. It’s not like some friendly little automated voice pops up and says, “Hey, just wanted to alert you that you’re hormone levels are lower now. So you should slightly alter your workout and recovery schedule to continue to get optimal results in your body.

(18:32)
Oh, and while you’re at it, dial in your nutrition intake a little more.” She doesn’t tell you all of that. But I am telling you, and I’ve been telling you, and I hope that you will definitely check out some of the other podcast episodes in this season where I’m breaking down all of the training strategies that are optimal for you in perimenopause and post menopause as well as in your cycling years. How you can naturally sort of like work with your energy levels over the course of your natural cycle because those are worthy of an entire podcast and you can listen to those anytime if you’re interested. So the way to take advantage of getting the right recovery for your life stage is to think about the answer to that first question again, right? Which is, is what you’re doing effective for you today based on your ability to recover?

(19:28)
And of course your current level of fitness if we’re thinking about that as well. So you just wanna check in with yourself on how recovered you are from your last training session. Make sure you’re not sore or training the same muscles on back-to-back days the exact same way, right? You wanna avoid training super hard when you’re sick or you’re getting over cold, or your immune system is in some way compromised and you just wanna be really mindful of your energy balance, your adrenal response, you nutrient intake, and your energy balance in general, right? My suggestion is to follow a plan that was created by a professional, one that really thoughtfully sequences your training and has recovery days built in so that if you wanna add some additional training to your plan, you, you can consider making the plan you’re following take a little longer so there’s room for your recreational activities or the other things you enjoy.

(20:24)
You can always feel this out as you go. For instance, if you have a workout scheduled, try adding the other recreation you have planned that same day and then enjoy your full recovery day after instead of like training day after day after day. And just always being in a state of inflammation right where you never fully recover. And that also means you never fully bring your full intensity to the workouts that you’re doing, so you’re not really getting as much out of them as you could be. Or you know, if your plan calls for two days of back-to-back training, consider doing one day of your planned workout and then your recreational activity, then a rest day, then pick up with the second day of your workout plan. Be thoughtful and be intentional about your energy use. Listen to your body and back off when you’re tired or depleted, push it hard.

(21:11)
When you have more drive and you’re well rested and recovered, you’ll get a far better result. Hey, rockstar, thank you so much for listening today and I really hope you got some good insights from this conversation that will give you more confidence in making the best choice for yourself in whatever situation that you’re in and inside rock your life. My members have full access to me and the other team, Betty Rocker coaches, and we frequently answer questions where we’re helping members modify their training schedule to say, accommodate their recreational activities or, you know, we’re there to support you and listening to your body and encouraging you to take those important surrounding actions that make your workouts more meaningful and effective, like your nutrient intake, your water intake, your self-care, your stress, resilience, building practices, and really setting up good bedtime habits as well. I’ve also provided varying training schedules for all of my Rock Your Life Challenge programs so that women of every life stage can follow an optimal path of workout intensity and recovery that drives better results.

(22:11)
You could pick any challenge in rock your life and it would come with multiple tracks for you to choose from. Depending on your life stage, you can have access to all of those tracks and use any of them at any time if say one’s better for your schedule, for instance, support is provided and using the community is always encouraged. A lot of my members buddy up with each other to do challenges together, and we have live group challenges multiple times throughout the year, which are really fun, exciting, and motivational for everybody. And there’s just so much support for you in rock your life, whether you’re a beginner or you’re more advanced, whether you’re starting from home using just your own body weight or you’re someone who has a home workout collection of dumbbells or all the way up to using barbells and weight plates. We’ve got you covered in a really supportive women’s fitness environment that will really help you stay connected to your goals and learn about your body too, so you can get the best results and carry this knowledge forward forever. I love being a part of Rock Your Life and writing the programs and coaching and getting to know all the amazing women from all over the world who are part of our community. And I would love to see you there and you can check all that out and join us over @thebettyrocker.com slash coaching. Now, I wanna thank you so much for joining me today, and I look forward to our next conversation. So till then, I’m Betty Rocker and you are so awesome, flawsome and amazing. Bye for now.