Excessive physical activity lead to premature aging And frequent illnesses. Find out how to avoid overdoing your exercise routine.

Everything is good in moderation

Nobody argues that physical activity is beneficial. Sports activities accelerate metabolic processes, help keep yourself in shape, and are also an excellent prevention of many diseases, such as diabetes, obesity and arterial hypertension. But a logical question arises: how much time should be devoted to sports in order for the training to be beneficial and not harmful. If sport has become an obsessive habit for you, and every day you “torture” yourself by running and strength exercises, then know that there will be no benefit from such activity. It is known that excessive loads lead to accelerated aging, decreased protective forces body, as well as to big problems with musculoskeletal system, in particular, due to the high risk of injury and overload of the musculoskeletal system. Too much heavy load on our body leads to the production large quantity free radicals, which worsens and metabolic processes. And on hot days, intense workouts can result in dehydration.

How do you know if you've overdone it?

As a rule, a person does not immediately realize that it is time for him to slow down. As a rule, it takes several months before symptoms of overtraining become obvious.

At excessive activities Sports primarily disrupt sleep patterns. You have difficulty waking up in the morning, you can sleep for 12-14 hours, and from time to time you are bothered by insomnia. At the same time, emotional instability is evident, which is expressed in frequent changes mood, irritability and causeless attacks of aggression. Over time, a gradual loss of strength occurs. It seems to you that your usual sports equipment (dumbbells, barbells) have become noticeably heavy, and that the previous distances during jogging are given to you with shortness of breath and severe fatigue.

Due to a decrease in the body's defenses due to excessive physical activity people more often get sick with acute respiratory infections viral diseases, and the recovery process takes longer than usual.

A clear sign of overtraining is weight loss (unless, of course, you have overweight). If you notice that your volumes have become smaller, then immediately reduce the load, otherwise you risk driving yourself to complete exhaustion.

Sports that are prone to overtraining

So, what types of physical activity contribute to fatigue and exhaustion? First of all, these are sports that require significant energy expenditure, for example, running, swimming, skiing. This also includes some game types sports, because during the game a person often gets so carried away that he stops listening to his body. For example, it could be football, basketball, tennis or badminton.

Reader Questions

18 October 2013, 17:25 Hello! I haven’t seen a urologist yet, but it seems to me that I have a varicocele. The veins in the testicles can be easily felt; in a steamed state, the right one hangs down more than the left. I'm working out at the gym all year round I was preparing for the summer, and I’m interested in the following: if I have surgery, will it interfere with my training? How long will you need to wait to lift weights? And also, when I go to urinate, some kind of liquid comes out from the end, it doesn’t look like pus. transparent and odorless. what could it be? thank you

How to avoid overtraining?

First of all, learn to listen to your body. Never exercise forcefully. If you doubt whether it’s worth “winding” another circle around the stadium, don’t do it. Doubt is already a reason to stop.

The ideal option would be if you start using the services of a personal trainer and a doctor. Based on your physiological parameters, they will create an individual sports program for you that will only benefit you.

Don't be lazy and keep a special training diary where you write down all the data related to training, as well as your weight and the number of calories consumed per day. This way you can control the process of your training and detect certain deviations in training in time.

If you play sports, doctors strongly recommend drinking plenty of fluids. If yours last more than one hour, then it is advisable to take special sports drinks with electrolytes, but in other cases it will do mineral water without gas.

The ideal type and amount of loads from a scientific point of view

Few people have thought about pushing their limits of endurance the way Benoit Lecomte did. He was the first man to swim across Atlantic Ocean. He now plans to swim across the Pacific Ocean from Tokyo to San Francisco - a wet and lonely 8,800 km journey that will take about 5-6 months.

According to NPR, "Lecomte, who lives in Austin, Texas, is returning to the ocean to raise awareness about environmental issues... During his swim, he plans to collect material from the Pacific Ocean, including microbes and trash."

People can visit his Facebook page, The Longest Swim. This perfect example extreme exercise, and cardiologist Dr. Benjamin Levine, director of the Institute of Exercise and Health environment, will monitor Lecomte's heart function and health during this event. To do this, it will use the same technology that NASA uses to track the health of astronauts on the ISS.

Most likely, Lecomte will harm his heart, because contrary to popular belief, “a lot” does not equal “better” in the case of exercise. There is a limit beyond which the harm caused exceeds the benefit.

Exercise is great medicine when taken in the right dosage

Modern fitness research contains many claims that physical activity- one of the most “preventive medicines” against various diseases from mental disorders to heart disease, diabetes and cancer. For example, a meta-analysis of 305 randomized controlled trials comparing the effectiveness of exercise and... drug treatment for cases with fatal found that there was “no statistically supported difference” between the benefits of exercise and medications for prediabetes and heart disease.

One of the key health benefits of exercise is that it normalizes glucose, insulin and leptin levels by optimizing the functioning of their receptors. This is important factor for general health of the body and prevention of chronic diseases. Exercise also promotes health and longevity by forcing your mitochondria (the small intracellular "energy stations" that produce ATP) to work harder and replenish increased energy costs.

A side effect is slowing down biological aging. However, as with other drugs, it is a matter of dosage. Too little physical activity will not bring benefits, but will make things worse, since chronic inactivity is an independent risk factor for chronic diseases and early death.

On the other hand, excessive physical exercise harmful. As Dr. Levine noted, while endurance athletes live 20% longer than non-athletes, that is, those who do not run, it is also clear that if you overdo it, you are at high risk of health problems.

One of the risks of excessive high-intensity cardio training is that you can cause your heart to become enlarged. This sometimes leads to diatonic dysfunction, which can subsequently lead to heart failure. This disease is epidemic in the United States.

The ideal dosage of exercise for health and longevity

The study found that 40 to 50 minutes of vigorous daily exercise or more than an hour of moderate exercise (such as walking) is ideal. The benefits of training stop as you increase the load, and further efforts will not bring additional improvements.

One of the largest, longest, and most recent studies has shed light on the boundary of the “zone of life.” Those who engage in walking or other activities moderate loads for 420 minutes a week (an hour a day, seven days a week) reduces the risk premature death by 39% compared to those who do not engage in this load.

Those who exercised 3.5 hours a day had a 31% reduction in mortality risk. The same pattern is observed among those who tend to exercise 150 minutes a week (about 20 minutes a day).

Another large-scale study that focused on the intensity of training found that spending 30% of your entire workout on vigorous, high-intensity exercise could reduce your risk of premature death. While if you avoid increasing the rhythm of your training, you will not get the same result.

When it comes to intense cardio training, previous research (discussed on TED) has shown that to improve your health, you need to run between 8 and 32 kilometers per week, ideally between 16 and 24 kilometers per week. Once you reach 40 kilometers per week, you again reduce the benefit of the load to zero.

Also, if you run too fast (around 13 km/h) the benefit disappears (note that this refers to the speed of an intense marathon, not a sprint interval). Finally, if you run seven days a week, the benefits will also disappear. The ideal amount of exercise is 30 minutes of running two to five days a week.

Thus, the key to success is moderation, moderation in load, duration and frequency. Human body was not designed for long-term extreme athletic exercise, such as fighting ocean waves for 8 hours for 6 months straight.

Exercise less - move more

Some people may be confused by so many exercise recommendations because I advocate high-intensity exercise, but on the other hand, I strongly emphasize that active image life is sometimes more important than regular training.

If you think about it, this is not a contradiction at all. The fact is that exhausting workouts for an hour or more, and then sitting still all day will not benefit you, since the latter counteracts the former.

The study demonstrated that 6 hours of sitting still counteracted the positive health effects of an hour of exercise. So the basis good health- This is a relatively constant and regular movement, avoid sitting as much as possible because even a simple upright position has a positive biological effect.

I firmly believe that 7,000-10,000 steps per day is the key to health and longevity. Now that I'm a Florida resident, I walk on the beach barefoot for about an hour every day. I used to walk for 2 hours, but based on the information presented in the article, I realized that extra time has no health benefits. The key is balance and moderation.

This is the foundation or foundation upon which you can build your training program. top level. For maximum benefit With minimal costs time, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is the perfect complement. Two to three times a week and no more, as your body needs to recover between workouts.

Walking + HIIT = natural and comfortable combination

HIIT Benefits Include Workout cardiovascular system, muscle and strength growth, synthesis of human anti-aging hormone (HGH peptide), also called growth hormone. It effectively stimulates your muscles to release anti-inflammatory myokine, which increases sensitivity to insulin and glucose in the muscles.

It also increases the release of fat from fat cells and its burning in skeletal muscles. This is why HIIT is very effective for weight loss. If you've already included more walking in your daily routine motor activity, it will be enough to simply switch the rhythm to a regular one, in particular, dilute the fast walking with a slower natural walk.

In every study, we've learned that alternating high and low intensities have the most significant impact, and nowhere does it say you have to do HIIT at a machine-paced pace. You can make this part of your daily walking routine. By speeding up while walking, you can replenish your efforts without wasting time.

How and Why Extreme Cardio Can Harm Your Heart

HIIT has another advantage - safety. While you can overdo it during HIIT. So, the Tabata protocol should only be tried by very trained people; long-term cardio contains more risk, since your body does not have the opportunity to recover.

Prolonged intense cardio triggers inflammatory mechanisms and wears out the heart. Your heart pumps about 6 liters of blood per minute when you are sitting. When running, the volume increases to 28 and 34 liters; its structure did not provide for pumping such an amount of blood for hours every day.

With this rhythm, your heart enters a stage of overflow, which stretches the walls of the heart muscle, destroying its tissue.

Impossibility full recovery also poses a problem. Many athletes live in a constant post-workout state that resembles chronic oxidative stress. This repeated and unrelenting damage to the heart increases inflammation, which leads to the formation of blood plaques, since plaques are a way of “tying up” your inflamed blood vessels.

Over time, more damage is done and the heart may become enlarged (hypertrophy) and scarred (cardiac fibrosis). MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans of marathon runners reveal extensive scarring around their heart. Scientists also measured increased level cardiac enzymes after extreme exercise. The results are the same as with heart attack. This means that this type of exercise is harmful to your heart.

While you may appear healthy by some measure, you are at risk of dying from cardiac arrest, which happens to more than one marathon runner every year.

Oh, sports - you are the world! We have all heard this expression since childhood: we were brought up in the firm belief that sports can make our body strong, healthy and strong. In our minds, an athlete is a person of rare health, not susceptible to illness or mental problems. Even physical work was equated to sports in terms of its healing effects: it develops muscles, strengthens the heart, and develops endurance.

Good in moderation

In many ways this is correct. But, as often happens, too much of a good thing is also bad. Same physical work if it is too heavy, it leads to deterioration of health and overdevelopment separate groups muscles. And with sports, everything turned out to be not so rosy: professional athletes, in fact, are people who are not only not entirely healthy, but even very sick! What's the matter - do sports bring health or is it dangerous myth, which is time to debunk?

People involved in physical work believe that they do not need to play sports - they are already in shape. Croatian scientists have proven these people wrong. Physical work is not dosed in intensity, volume, duration and is quite monotonous - that is, it affects only some muscle groups. People most often walk and carry heavy objects. In this case, the arm muscles develop, but the rest of the muscles do not develop very well. The study, which was conducted by Croatians, involved men from 20 to 60 years old. They were divided into two groups, differing in load intensity. To test the strength and elasticity of the muscles, it was necessary to do several exercises. Only in the finger squeezing exercise did those whose work was harder show greater muscle strength. But in exercises for the elasticity of ligaments and muscles, office workers were often ahead, not lifting anything heavier than a stack of paper. The scientists' conclusion is simple - a set of exercises is needed in order for the muscles to develop evenly.

Sleep or sport?

How younger man, the easier it is to endure physical labor. And the older a person is, the more dangerous physical overload is for him - not only in work, but also in sports.

But the German scientist Peter Axt, apparently a hater of sports at heart, generally argues that to maintain health and longevity the most important thing is nap or, as a last resort, relaxing on the sofa and plain laziness! Of course, exercise helps in the fight against overweight, reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, but if they are debilitating, then all the benefits come to naught. Peter Axt in his book “The Joy of Idleness” encourages spending free time to the satisfaction of doing nothing than to exercise in the gym, if they do not bring pleasure, but are performed through force. Besides, laziness is not easy bad habit. In fact, it is the body's defense mechanism against stress!

Of course, Akst does not call for giving up physical exercise. He says that they should bring satisfaction. In his opinion, you can maintain your shape with daily walks. This is especially true for older people - people over 50 years old who run spend energy on it, but it should have been spent on something else. Akst believes that by doing this they speed up aging and memory deterioration. Although the example of Academician Amosov suggests the opposite - he ran and maintained good shape at 80 years old.

Many experts agree with Akst, who believe that physical activity should be dosed, individual and bring joy to a person. Twenty minutes a day is enough to maintain body functions in good shape.

The World Health Organization defines health as a state of not only physical, but also mental and social well-being. So a fit figure with upset nerves can no longer be considered health.

Morning exercises, swimming for fun and playing football on Sundays with friends or your son improve your health and lift your spirits. Intense physical activity in professional sports for the sake of achievements leads to wear and tear on the body and illness. It's about not about injuries - this is inevitable in sports. We are talking about the so-called professional chronic diseases athletes. Football players suffer from joint diseases, weightlifters suffer from spinal diseases, gymnasts suffer from disorders of the osseous-ligamentous system.

All this suggests that moderation is needed in everything. You should not exercise too intensely - there will be no health benefits, but harm is possible. This is not a call sedentary lifestyle life, no less harmful to health. This is just a warning for those who have no sense of proportion in anything.

To be healthy, you need to constantly exercise. Each of us has heard these words more than once, but not all people are ready to follow this call. Why can’t 10 minutes be allocated for exercise out of 4-5 exercises? Perhaps one of the reasons for the reluctance to play sports is a lack of understanding of exactly how physical activity affects our body. Is exercise good for your heart? If yes, then why. Is running good for the heart and blood vessels? How does exercise help you stay healthy and fit? Let's find out.

Is exercise good for the heart?

Most people will answer this question positively, since we have been told since childhood that this is so. But what exactly happens to the heart when a person regularly engages in sports and exercise?

As a result of numerous studies, it has been established that regular exercise helps to increase cardiac volume. Its average volume for an ordinary man who does not play sports is approximately 750 cubic cm. Now let's find out what kind of heart capacity trained people, for example, long-distance racers, alpine skiers, boxers or basketball players, can boast of. Their heart volume exceeds 900 cm cubic! The situation is similar with the indicators of girls. Those who do not play sports have a heart volume that does not exceed 580 cm3, while for female cyclists, handball players, and women rowers it is more than 750 cm3.

What is the significance of heart volume for health? In proportion to the increase in the volume of this organ, its stroke volume of blood also increases. What does this mean? In other words, big heart with one push it is capable of pushing out a significant volume of blood. It turns out that in people who are regularly exposed to physical activity, the heart muscle works more slowly, but more efficiently. This phenomenon is called training bradycardia. Athletes, gymnasts and people involved in physical culture constantly, the heart muscle works slowly, and it does not matter whether the person is resting or engaged in hard physical labor. U ordinary people The heart muscle, under intense stress, begins to increase its oscillatory movements.

What are the benefits of slowing your heart rate and increasing your stroke volume? An ordinary person being influenced serious loads or having experienced a shock, he is at risk - his heart begins to work harder, increasing the number of contractions. Having reached the maximum threshold, cardiac arrest or malfunction may occur. In people who constantly train, the heart is already accustomed to stress, it works moderately and steadily, it is distinguished by endurance. Faced with severe stress or shock, finding yourself in an unbearable difficult conditions, a trained organ will not stop its work and will not misfire.

Physical education classes are not the same thing as professional sports, you might say. But any physical activity that occurs regularly and is not occasional is beneficial for the heart and blood vessels. They train this organ, gradually increasing its volume and increasing endurance.

Is running good for the heart and blood vessels?

Running is considered one of the the best ways strengthen the heart and blood vessels. The cardiovascular system responds well to prolonged, low-intensity exercise, such as running, cycling, race walking, rowing.

Daily jogging allows the body to get rid of bad cholesterol, and this is known to be a favorable factor for blood vessels. They are cleansed from the inside, the lumen in the capillaries and veins increases, which promotes good blood flow and normalization of pressure.

While running, almost all muscles work. Muscle fibers heat up, increase in size and exert slight pressure on the walls of blood vessels, stimulating them. This increases the elasticity of the veins, which means reducing the risk of developing many vascular diseases– varicose veins, thrombophlebitis and others.

When a person leads a sedentary lifestyle, most small vessels, located vertically, are also almost inactive. Blood moves through them very slowly, supplying a minimal amount of oxygen to adjacent tissues and organs. During running, these stagnant zones also begin to work, the blood in the capillaries moves faster, which means that all organs receive a sufficient amount of oxygen.

Running allows naturally reduce blood pressure, which means protecting a person from stroke. Since the bulk of blood during training and running rushes to skeletal muscles which requires a lot nutrients and oxygen, the pressure in the veins and arteries decreases slightly.

What conclusions can be drawn from the above? People who exercise regularly, rather than occasionally, benefit their cardiovascular system. Their heart rate stable, no matter what conditions they find themselves in, they are not afraid of stress and severe overexertion. Those who jog daily should not be afraid of stroke or heart attack, as well as thrombophlebitis or varicose veins. Their vessels are cleared of cholesterol, elastic and resilient, and all tissues and organs are sufficiently supplied with oxygen. This is my answer about whether running is good for blood vessels and the heart.

Sports activities are certainly useful; every person should have physical activity; they help maintain muscle tone, train endurance and physical strength. It is rare to hear about the dangers of sport, since sport is considered very useful activity, but there is also a flip side to the coin.

Morning exercises are simply necessary in order to properly disperse the blood throughout the body, improve blood circulation, and prepare the body for full-fledged work for the whole working day. However, when the question concerns physical activity, some people think that what bigger body experiences them, the healthier he becomes, and there are people who, without sparing themselves at all, try so hard to work out that by the end of the day they simply collapse from fatigue. This is, of course, bad; all the benefits that physical exercise can bring to the body are literally reversed. reverse side. The only exceptions are professional athletes, whose training process is compiled according to a clear schedule, and sometimes, in order to achieve certain heights, they do not spare themselves and their body, however, with properly scheduled training, sport brings undeniable benefits to human health, but some negative consequences Sometimes it still leaves behind. But we are talking here specifically about the dangers of physical activity, when people sometimes do not correctly calculate their capabilities and can greatly harm themselves.

hard work

There are people who do hard physical work, some believe that workers in such professions as a loader are incredibly strong and full of health, however, often too hard work can only take away from it. The main harm from physical activity at work is that it is completely unbalanced, for example, a person unloads a car with heavy bags, he bends down, takes the bag, and straightens up with the weight of this bag, and does this kind of work for a dozen or even a hundred times without a break, while other muscles practically do not work, or work to a much lesser extent, in this case there is a disproportionate load on the back and spine, only the lower back muscles work and naturally in such cases the muscles in this place are far from strengthened , but on the contrary, they only wear out. With such long and unbalanced loads, various types of injuries can develop, and subsequently diseases of the back and spine; this is just one example when there is an uneven load on the muscles. If we compare hard work with sports training, then during training they do various exercises, For different groups muscles, the severity and intensity of the exercises is taken exactly as the athlete is ready to overcome. In addition, rest is very important for muscles, which they often do not receive, so physical work is often more harmful than beneficial.

harm to sports

Training in the gym may also not always be safe, especially for beginners, often, having come, for example, to gym, unprepared people do not choose the right weights or begin to rush from one exercise to another, and, as a rule, without warming up. Warm-up is very important when playing sports; it warms up the muscles, making them more flexible, improving their readiness for stress and development. In many cases, it is precisely because of the lack of knowledge of what to do and the lack of warm-up that sports injuries occur so often in beginners; the most common injuries are on sports training These are muscle and ligament sprains. It happens that a person incorrectly evaluates his real opportunities, after which the next day he cannot get out of bed due to severe pain in the muscles, this is all due to the accumulation of lactic acid in the muscles, especially if the person has not been involved in sports for a long time or has never done sports before.

Of course, professional sports, and in particular the physical activity that an athlete is constantly forced to endure, is not in vain, harm from physical activity in sports is due to rapid wear and tear of the entire body, since resources are exhaustible for everyone, even the most enduring, and athletes spend them at multiple speeds. Professional injuries in athletes are most often diseases of the joints, since the main blow falls on them. Older athletes often suffer from headaches; in addition, old injuries often make themselves felt.

active exercises

Harm from vigorous physical activity, such as running or cycling, can be dangerous for people in later life, especially if they are just starting out running. Usually after 40 years, many people start their own physical condition to unsatisfactory, and some decide to put themselves in order, lose weight and get in shape, but do not think that they have never been involved in sports before and their body is not adapted to such active actions, and after the first lap at the stadium they may feel pain in the heart, dizziness, shortness of breath, darkening in the eyes, etc., these are signs oxygen starvation, the body does not have enough oxygen to nourish the muscles, it is especially important if after the age of 35-40 you are going to start playing sports, be sure to check with your doctor for the presence of hidden diseases, which may still be early stages, and you yourself may not know about them, since nothing bothered you, and if you have even minor problems with the heart, kidneys, lungs, or low blood pressure, cholesterol, etc., you should be more wary about playing sports and not rush right off the bat. Although sport is most often beneficial for the body, similar diseases it will not cure, but may, on the contrary, worsen the situation, so think about harm from physical activity, if you are over 40 years old, the harm of sports may be much greater than its benefits.

The harm of physical activity is dangerous for people with congenital diseases spine, osteoporosis, increased blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, diseases of the cardiovascular system and other diseases of bones and internal organs, If congenital pathologies you or your child have, then be sure to consult with your doctor about the opportunity to play sports in order to subsequently avoid the harm of physical activity or sports injuries and maintain your health.