Over Exercising - how do we know?

[Chuckanut]

As a group of older people, how do we know when we are over exercising?

I am not a gym rat. I do not get a high from working out. But, I do spend about one hour a day, six days a week, stretching and using weights (my body or dumbbells) in an exercise routine at home.

One thing I have discovered as I age is that I have more aches and pains. But, I also realize the aches and pain are coming and will be with me whether I let myself become weak and feeble or I maintain a good level of strength. So, I do the exercise routine. I also do a brisk walk (minimum 30 minutes) including some hills four days a week.

This year one thing I noticed when I travel and thus have to reduce or eliminate my exercise routines, is that after a few days, I have fewer aches and pains. I feel better when I take a 3-5 day break from exercising. My doctor says I may be over-exercising for a man my age (early 70's). His advice was to week by week cut out a day of exercise and see if that helps. He still recommends at least three days a week at a minimum.

Has anybody dealt with over exercising? What did you do?

 

[Alan]

A flippant answer to your question is that death is nature's way of telling you that you are overdoing it.

I have been through the same thing as you describe and as I got older found myself cutting back because of aches and pains. My approach is that over exercising is definitely "a thing" and I found that switching the type of exercise was necessary, such as stationary bikes or elliptical trainers rather than more impactive exercise. I had to give up soccer in my mid 30s, soccer refereeing in my forties, tennis when I was age 60 etc.

Growing old is hard on the body so I think it is worth listening to it and adjusting to suit your needs. I can't even hike long distances now because of arthritis in one of my knees, although the doc tells me to walk as much as the pain allows in this case. (This is the doc that fixed a badly torn cartilage a couple of years ago so had a close up look at the arthritis that was developing)

 

[COcheesehead]

Some wearables will give you feedback on recovery time needed after workouts. I watch my resting heart rate on my Apple Watch. It stays elevated after harder efforts. When it drops back into my normal zone, I know I have recovered. My wife’s Garmin calculates the hours needed to recover.

 

[pacergal]

Pain is your body's way of telling you to pay attention. You may be over using specific joints or muscle groups. But exercise is also important in maintaining health.

Have you checked to see how you feel if you do your walks 3 days a week and home exercise routine 3 days a week, with one day of rest? Decreasing a bit, but still good exercise weekly.

 

[justlikebike]

Definitely as one ages repetitive motion is more likely to cause pain and injury. My solution is to change up my exercise. Personally, I believe you should not minimize your stretching. Potentially your aches and pains are due to a lack of water intake during and after exercise? I don't think you are over exercising, I think the 2 most likely issues are not enough water or not recovering post exercise properly.

 

[street]

Interesting topic. Like the rest have said listening to your body will tell you what and how much.
I try to do as much as possible and stay as active as possible, but I also know when I have done too much.
If I do a lot of physical work for a few days, I don't sleep well at night. I believe it is the healing processes of mending muscle and healing the body.
I also feel better and more fit if I push myself to do some of the tasks and believe the rewards for me are better than taking the easy road. IMO

 

[razztazz]

It's been the story of my life the past few years. And I still do it. I think I'm cutting back but then I start feeling good so I decide to throw in an extra day of workouts... don't worry, I won't overdo it. Then I spend 2 days on a heating pad having aspirin for dinner afraid this time the pain won't go away.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I either walk or use a pedal machine 4-5 days a week. I purposefully have some days off for rest. I have chronic back and neck pain from car accidents.

 

[bloom2708]

Wear a heart rate monitor. If your resting heart rate is elevated, you may be more tired.

I don't think you are overdoing it, but you should not do strength 6 days a week. Mix in yoga, pilates, core, HIIT and cardio with your stretching and strength workouts.

The best way to avoid the aches and pains is to eat less meat and dairy (or none) and less highly processed junk. Eat more whole plant foods. Your inflammation will greatly decrease. Oh and alkohol is horrible for you as you age. Well, horrible at any age, but worse as you age.

 

[tmm99]

I actually feel better when I exercise a few days in a row than taking breaks in between days (less pain). After I exercise a lot, if I sleep a lot the next day, I seem to recover much faster. After 3 days of exercise, my fitbit readiness score can get to <10. I'm really tired when my score gets that low and then I need some rest. If I feel like my pain will keep me awake, I may take one tylonol tablet which helps with my pain just a little. Ibuprofen works better, but I tend to get bruise marks with it, so I seldom take it.

If I take a few days off and exercise, I hurt like crazy the next day, so I try to minimize my break to just one day or sometimes two.

I used to stretch before exercising, and used to hurt a whole lot more the next day, so I stopped stretching for the most part. All I do is rotate my ankles, wrists, and stretch my hamstrings, rotate my arms and jump a few times, and rotate my neck a few times (if I remember to do all that and even if I did, I'd be done with it within 30 seconds.) It may be just me, but I hurt much less this way.

 

[RunningBum]

I used to run 5-6 times a week, often 50 miles or more per week if I had a race on the schedule. I cut back to 3-5 times, and shorter runs. A lot of it was by feel. If I was feeling stiff and sore and it wasn't getting better after a 1/2 mile, I'd turn it into a walk or a run/walk.

Maybe lighten the weights a bit, and cut the time a bit, and slow your pace a little on walkw, at least on some walks. If you're sore from the previous day, take the day off or make it a light workout. I like your regimen, both what you are doing and how you mix it up. I'd recommend just scaling it back a bit. I suppose you could scale it back a lot and then try to increase slowly until you seem to hit your limit.

 

[friar1610]

I’ve been trying to stick to an alternate hard-easy regimen 6 days per week with the 7th day off. That seems to help. But after a week or two of that I’ll feel more energetic and go back to 2 hard days-1 easy day. Then I’m reminded why I do the alternate single hard-easy days. And the cycle repeats because even at 77 I’ll never learn.

 

[TripleLindy]

I’ve cut way back on cardio. After shoulder and knee surgery last year, my doc told me it’s time to slow down. Not what I wanted to hear, as I now finally have time to do things! I play lots of competitive pickleball, which I know is putting stress on the joints. I do more resistance work now to try to build muscle to help protect the joints instead of all cardio. My weight work is pretty light. Not trying to bulk up or anything at 60.

 

[Mark1]

.... But, I do spend about one hour a day, six days a week, stretching and using weights (my body or dumbbells) in an exercise routine at home.
...

It's not clear if OP does the exact same routine six days a week, or mixes it up with cardio one day and weight bearing exercise the next, etc. I would recommend mixing it up and only do weights, etc., 3 times a week such that your muscles can recover between workouts. DW and I work out everyday for ~1 hour, but mix it up and have a different routines (DVD, etc.) for everyday of the week. We always know what day of the week it is by what exercise routine we did that morning.

What is too much? Hard to tell. I would prefer to die from over exercise than under exercise. Someday I hope to die in the middle of the night from my heart giving out from excessive exercise. I just hope it is a long ways off.

 

[audreyh1]

I’ve read that for older people 20 minutes of serious strength training per week is enough tested against longer periods. Same with HIIT. No limits on more moderate exercise AFAIK including cardio.

 

[Music Lover]

I used to work out each muscle 3 times a week when I was young. Now at 60 it's every 5 or 6 days.

Day 1: upper body push and pull
Day 2: 20 or 30 minutes cardio
Day 3: lower body push and pull
Day 4: 20 or 30 minutes cardio

Then repeat or add another rest on day 5

 

[zinger1457]

Could be a combination of too much weight and poor technique. I kind of went through that when I was exercising at home, using mostly dumbbells. The last 3 years I've been working out in the gym 3X a week, using lighter weights and more reps, pretty much eliminated the aches and pains.

 

[Chuckanut]

It's not clear if OP does the exact same routine six days a week, or mixes it up with cardio one day and weight bearing exercise the next, etc.

You make a good point.

Right now some weight bearing exercise is done everyday. The upper body on one day, the lower body the other day, and balance and stretching each day. FWIW, balance exercise are all lower body and weight bearing. So, in reality i am doing lower body 6 days a week. I guess I need a break from that.

 

[Ronstar]

I've never had burnout from lifting weights, probably because I very seldom lift more than 2 or 3 times per week. Just dumbbells. But I run 3-4 times a week except in the winter. I start off fine in the spring, but my body is a mess by October. Knee, hip, feet and lower back problems. So I stop running in October, and everything is fine in a couple of months. Dr told me to cross train.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

OP asked if anyone has dealt with over exercising and what we did about it. I have a few processes to minimize this.

I use a heart rate monitor and a watch that reads the monitor. Then it computes how many calories I burn. I use that for comparative purposes, not absolute calories burned. I keep exercising until I get to some reasonable number based on the type of exercise. For example, burning 200 calories on a stair master is a can do, but for me, 200 calories of weights is improbable.

I mainly do cardio on the stair master, rowing machine, SkiErg or elliptical. I supplement cardio with some weightlifting. I am careful with weightlifting. I start a machine or exercise using a small weight. I progress slowly. I don't do many stretches as my warmup covers most of that.

There are two types of pain. A "good" pain is where I have worked that muscle and it is trying to recover. A bad pain is where I twist that joint in a bad way.

 

[jollystomper]

I have been working out (in various forms) since high school. I had to learn the hard way - by getting injured. Fortunately nothing was so extreme to be permanent. But overall I learned that consistency was more important than increasing weights/reps for fitness, and lessened the chances for over-exercising. For example, I have stayed at 30 lb barbells for curl reps for 10+ years. As long as I am consistent in the frequency of doing them as part of my workout 4-5 times a week, I have no need to increase the weight (though I could).

In my view, the more consistently one works out, the better one knows one's body, and something will just "feel different" during the workout to indicate that one better slow down or stop, to keep from overexercising.

With my routines, I also go with "if any soreness lasts more than a day, slow down". When I was younger I would not follow this, as my recovery time was quick. Now in my 60s, I go by the adage that it will take me longer to heal from a workout injury, so I will back off when I start feeling any long term soreness.

We are not all the same from a body composition and fitness standpoint, this is what works for me.

 

[NW-Bound]

Overexercising for me? Fat chance. Never did in my life.

Still, I guess with a BMI of 24, still being able to do pushups and pullups, BP of 125/80 with medication, fasting blood glucose of 100 without medication, I don't want to exercise more, lest it messes things up.

 

[sengsational]

I can't say if the theory is correct, but my wearable's app uses the time it takes nighttime heart rate to normalize as an indication for when to ease-up. If the heart rate takes a majority of the night to drop to your normal low, it advises easing your work out. If the heart rate drops down right away, it says to hit it hard.

 

[audreyh1]

Definitely it takes way longer to heal from injuries post 60!

 

[FloridaJim57]

Famed bodybuilding coach, the late Vince Gironda recommended three weeks on, one week off. He did NOT mean workout every day for three weeks. He meant whatever your normal routine is, whether it be three times per week or whatever. Then after three weeks take one full week off. Then you start your three active weeks again. I found it works for me.