The Risks of Working Out

Source: http://www.kneepainguide.com

Contrary to popular belief, working out is not always a good thing for you. Although working out  provides many health benefits, people should be aware of the short and long term effects of working out to prevent them. Fitness writer, Ben Greenfield, wrote his article Top 10 Reasons Exercise Is Bad For You in 2011 for Greenfield Fitness Systems. The author has an impressive education in exercise and diet, and his fitness book is a New York Times Best-Seller making him a credible source. The author’s overall claim is that intense working out can cause long-term health problems, ruin relationships, and skew the idea of a healthy lifestyle for someone.

Many kids are young and active and are too focused on their athletic goals to let the worries of athletic health problems get in the way of their athleticism. When kids start extreme exercising early in life, they set themselves up for exercise problems early. For example, “ regular exercisers, and especially for bodybuilders, triathletes, cyclists or marathoners, reducing or stopping exercise suddenly – or even missing one single workout – can result in depression, stress and anxiety.” I know some people who are overly obsessed with counting steps (thanks to the Fitbit) and will just walk around in circles so they can reach 10,000 steps for the day. This exercise obsession has a way of ruining friendships if a person is more worried about being active than their relationship. Exercise obsessions can cause marriages to end because “couples become increasingly conflicted as a spouse becomes obsessed with a particular exercise goal, such as extreme weight loss or an Ironman triathlon”  that takes a lot of time training for, time that would have been spent with their spouse. The opportunity cost of exercise is time and/or money, so for a family the costs of exercising can be detrimental.

Exercising can become addictive for people, especially endurance athletes, this is because during exercise the body releases endorphins which reduce stress and anxiety, and even have the effect of blocking pain. People get addicted to the feeling they have after exercising and the results they see, so that is why “you’ll often see endurance athletes trying to push through and continue their chronic repetitive motion training no matter what, often to the continued detriment and breakdown of the body’s worn and tired joints.” Although endorphins may be blocking the pain that you feel in the moment, you are setting yourself up to not be able to handle light exercise when you are older. It is hard for us to see how we exercise directly affects our body,so it is important to keep in mind that “the cartilage has a finite number of shock absorptions, and once you’ve reached your quota, your body begins to fail.” This is not to say that exercise is bad for you, but like anything you need to exercise in moderation and switch up your workouts so you are not stressing any part of your body too much. You also need to realize when to skip or tone down a workout because “if the intensity and frequency of the stress becomes too great, then the adrenal glands can begin to become exhausted, and the hormones that they produce can become depleted” causing inability to respond to physical or emotional stress.

Another habit that kids can develop in their lives is unhealthy eating habits as a result working out. For example swimmers who burn more calories than they take in are loaded up with carbs and sugar during their swimming season, but oftentimes these athletes carry on these habits into the off season and unhealthy eating sticks with them throughout their lives. A large caloric intake beyond exercise results in “constantly surging blood sugar levels cause sugar addiction and damage to blood vessels and nerves but they vastly increase risk for Type II diabetes.” For many people it is hard to go from eating a lot of food high in calories to healthy meals, and that is why washed up athletes gain weight after ending their athletic career because they are so used to burning calories and needing to eat a lot of food. Conversely, people trying to exercise more and eat less to lose weight quickly are going to end up failing. If you start exercising more, you need to fuel your body with more food because “heavy exercise volume causes food cravings that make it impossible to adjust to a healthy diet.” It is hard to start exercising more and go on a diet at the same time because the more you exercise the more food you need to help repair your muscles for growth. Exercising creates some complications that are hard to realize until they happen to you, so hopefully after reading this you feel more educated and ready to workout in a way that works out best for you!

Future Research:

• How can working out improve procrastination?