EXERCISE: How much is too much?

As the new year begins, we all gear up to fulfil our resolution to get fitter and in better shape than last year. We all want to keep up with our resolution of hitting the gym and sweating it out. So, what thought crosses your mind when you think about exercise? It’s good for health, will help our body get fitter and will help you maintain an ideal body. While all these things we just mentioned are right but there is something that many are still not aware of exercise, and that is too much of exercise can be bad for your health.

Yes, you heard it right, exercise can be overdone sometimes. Something as rewarding as exercise can also cause harm to your body when done unsupervised or if you don’t track it right. A right workout session can leave you refreshed, energized, de-stress your senses and can help you sleep well. While, on the other hand, stretching your body to the extreme without paying proper attention to your body needs can make you feel fatigued, lethargic, tired and stressed. This can even overburden your cardiovascular system that can alter your heart shape and size and can thicken the heart walls leading to other complications.

Overtraining Syndrome

While fitness is the new fad for the past few years, there has been a lot of amateur enthusiasts flocking to the gym and following the trend. In total, exercise is a good habit to inculcate, but such exercise without being aware of the result can lead to overtraining syndrome. As the name suggests the syndrome is defined as the stage where the body is unable to recover from the strain of strenuous activity leading to underperformance and fatigue. This is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome.

Few symptoms that can point towards overtraining syndrome are:

  • Increased heart rate at rest
  • Lack of enthusiasm
  • Frequent illnesses
  • Difficulty completing usual routines
  • Personality or mood changes
  • Increased anger or irritability
  • Sleep disturbances (difficulty sleeping or sleeping without feeling refreshed)

 

What adds more is the everyday stress that an individual goes through like office stress, personal stress, unhealthy eating and lack of nutrition further add to the overtraining recovery.

Your heart may be at risk due to excessive exercise

Exercising more than your body can cope up with can harm one of the most vital organs of your body, YOUR HEART.

As per a study publishes in BC Medical Journal, overtraining can make your heart suffer and can lead to conditions like hardening of blood vessels also known as atherosclerosis, irregular heart rhythm or atrial fibrillation and changes in the heart anatomy or thickening of the heart wall.

Exercise-related sudden death

Well, this can also be the case. There have been incidents recorded where an otherwise healthy person experienced a sudden cardiac arrest within an hour of a moderate or strenuous workout session. Here exercise is not the villain, an underlying cardiac cause is a reason behind such an incident which either the person is not aware of at all or didn’t consider their heart disease as a reason to abstain from such a workout.

The condition is completely preventable if there is a regular heart check done to be precise an ECG test and the physical activity is done in moderation and gradually build up the activity levels as per the physical need. The fact to consider is the age, gender, medical history as well as family history when ascertaining the risk. There have been many studies recently that are concluding to the fact that silent heart diseases are building up at a very quick pace among the younger generation, so ideally, no one is off the radar. While one might be thinking they are completely heart-healthy, the underlying heart issue can always crop up unexpectedly.

How not to overdo it

There are a lot of professional trainers out there to help you map your fitness still, every individual need is different. What suits you might not be ideal for the other person, so it’s important to understand what your body requires when it comes to training.

Instead of feeling puzzled, one can smartly choose technology to understand body endurance. Tracking your heart activity and keeping a close check on the heart health can help improve the fitness without compromising on the health. The easiest way is to know your heart rate while at rest and relatively checking your heart rate variability that is the new age tool to understand body stress level and endurance. There can be many heart patients out there who may be exercising regularly to maintain health. For such individuals heart, health tracking becomes even more crucial, an additional ECG test can further be added to better track the heart. Here SanketLife ECG device is the ideal fit, by not just being a heart activity tracker the device can help you with doctor recommended and tested ECG recording that can anytime give you a heart performance report at go.

Exercise is something that without excuse should be followed by all, doing it right and as per your body need is the key to it. What we suggest is you keep sweating it up while you work out and let SanketLife take up the job of monitoring how your heart is responding to your exercise schedule. So hit the gym and remember to pack SanketLife in your gym bag before you head out.

For more information visit www.sanketlife.in

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