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1. alan on August 9th, 2010 at 9:20 pm

   Sweat sensation

   TEN signs that you’re exercising too much (in no particular order):

   1. You feel a flu coming but still head out to the gym to get as much as you possibly can. After all, if you’re going to be sick for a couple of days, you better work harder in advance.

   2. A family emergency has cropped up but you’re still trying desperately to fit in a two-hour workout sometime during the day.

   3. You feel guilty, anxious, restless and depressed if you have to miss a day at the gym.

   4. You spend 45 minutes on the treadmill everyday. If, for some reason, you’re in a rush and can only afford 35 minutes, you try and think of how you can make up for the lost 10 minutes: climb the stairs at work all day or skip dinner, perhaps?

   5. You would rather exercise than spend time at the movies with your friends.

   6. You feel tired all the time.

   7. Your legs feel heavy, your resting heart rate is high, you get tired faster and you can’t seem to push yourself as hard as you used to.

   8. You think you can actually feel your “muffin top” getting bigger just because you missed a day at the gym.

   9, You can’t seem to fall asleep easily at night.

   10. You experience little or no sexual desire. Seriously, you’d rather exercise.

   fr:thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/8/9/lifefocus/6516174&sec=lifefocus

2. alan on August 9th, 2010 at 9:22 pm

   Addicted to exercise
   By S. INDRAMALAR

   Too much exercise is not healthy.

   IS there such a thing as too much exercise? Doctors and health professionals all recommend that we exercise regularly. But as with all things, too much of this good thing called exercise can be painfully bad.

   No one knows this better than Leyla, a self-confessed exercise addict. If there was a 12-step programme for exercise addicts, 38-year-old Leyla reckons she’d be a prime candidate.

   Her addiction began sometime in 2002 – six months after joining a neighbourhood gym.

   “I joined the gym because I wanted to lose about 10kg and get into shape. After about four months, I started seeing results and that got me hooked. I loved how exercising made me lose weight. I lost 5kg in four months! That was amazing,” shares Leyla.

   “It wasn’t enough just to lose weight; I had to tone up and firm up,” says Leyla. She started putting in more and more hours at the gym. From two-hour sessions three times a week, she started spending three hours at the gym, six days a week. Some days, she goes to the gym in the morning and evening.

   “All I could think about was exercise. I checked the Net for new running programmes, planned my next workout. If I were to miss a workout session, I would be irritable and moody,” recalls Leyla.

   About five years ago, Leyla’s body started to wear down. She suffered stress fractures on the metatarsal on both her feet, and she was tired all the time.

   “It was painful to walk or even lift my feet at times. When I ran, it was okay. But once I stopped, I was in pain. I now rely on muscle relaxants and painkillers to numb the ache,” she says. “I just cannot imagine not being able to work out.”

   Doctors urged her to quit running, at least for six months and try low-impact alternatives like swimming instead.

   “I stopped running for two weeks but that was all I could take. I felt restless and empty. What if I gained all that weight I worked so hard to lose?”

   Leyla fits the profile of an exercise addict or compulsive exerciser – someone with an unhealthy dependence on exercise, who goes at it for hours, daily, regardless of fatigue or illness. Exercise addicts are compelled to exercise because without their daily dose, they feel out of sorts, depressed even.

   For an addict, exercising overrides everything else in their life: friends, family, work and even play. If an exercise addict pushes too hard, they run the risk of overtraining.

   According to Simran Latif, lead trainer and coordinator for military-style fitness bootcamp, Original Bootcamp Sdn Bhd, exercise addiction and overtraining are like “two sides of a coin”.

   “Some individuals are addicted to the endorphin rush from exercise,” says Simran. “Extreme addiction could drive a person to continue exercising despite an injury. Overtraining, on the other hand, is a sign of chronic fatigue. It is important to understand that overtraining is a chronic condition; it does not happen overnight.

   “It usually takes an athlete of the highest level, who has been training intensely for a long time, to be able to push himself across the mental barriers of fatigue and pain.

   “It is highly unlikely that the average person who exercises a couple of times a week would develop this extreme condition. But if it gets to that stage, then medical advice should be sought. Sometimes rest is the best answer,” says Simran.

   Overtraining is generally what happens when a person exercises beyond the body’s ability to recover – exercising too much or too hard without adequate rest or nutrition, explains Simran.

   “If left unchecked, this can lead to a drop in strength and fitness, almost like hitting a psychological brick wall.”

   Though more common among professional athletes, a small percentage of people who work out regularly fall into the category of over-exercisers.

   According to an article What Is Exercise Addiction on about.com, only 8% of gym users meet the criteria for exercise addiction. These would be individuals who go overboard when exercising.

   For an exercise addict, the “psychological brick wall” is pure torture and the only way out is to push harder.

   “I get frantic when I don’t see any weight loss or I reach a plateau and start gaining weight despite all the work I do. So I run a little more or start a new activity on top of everything,” confesses Leyla.

   Sports physiotherapist K. Prabaharan feels the amount of exercise a person should take on is quite subjective.

   “Everyone has different fitness levels and goals. It’s important to know the limits of your own body. Even in a team (sport), not every member has the same fitness level. Some people can run for four hours without feeling a thing … like those who train for the Ironman (competition). Another who isn’t as fit won’t be able to run for even an hour. It all depends,” says the 54-year-old who was formerly a physiotherapist for the national football and badminton teams.

   Nevertheless, Prabaharan acquiesces that exercising three or four times a week for “about an hour” is a good standard to follow.

   Simran agrees. “Too much training is when you do high-intensity or long-distance exercises everyday … which hit the same muscle groups without giving your body time to recover. If you don’t allow your body to rest, you will tip the balance and the body will start to break down,” he says.

   How much is too much

   How much exercise can the human body take and still be in good health? The answer, say experts, is simple: listen to your body.

   Explains Prabaharan: “Your body is a good monitor (of how much you should exercise) and will tell you when it needs rest.

   “If you are not feeling good, you must check it out,” he says, adding that what’s enough for one person may not be the same for another.

   The problem with most exercise addicts is that they do not listen to the signals their body gives them.

   Proper rehabilitation, says Prabaharan, is something many people do not place enough importance on.

   “You have to allow your body to rehabilitate. The human body is really fantastic; it can go on and on. But it needs to rehabilitate and regenerate,” says Prabaharan, adding that a tired body takes longer to recover and rehabilitate.

   Excessive exercise can damage tendons, ligaments, bones, cartilage, joints and muscles. In most cases these injuries are not severe. If the body is not given a chance to rest and heal, minor injuries can become chronic.

   “Enthusiasm is a great thing when it comes to exercise; it can really keep the momentum going. However, I have seen over-enthusiastic non-athletes who train too much and too often. I have met individuals who run more than 50km a week and those who jump into competitive distance running without proper preparation.

   “There is a general notion that the more you exercise, the more improvement you get. More does not necessarily mean better when it comes to exercise,” says Simran.

   Nutrition and exercise attire are also important, Prabaharan stresses.

   “You have to drink a lot of water. With every drop of sweat, you lose a lot of minerals and electrolytes. You have to replace everything that is lost. Nutrition is also very important.”

   Personal trainer Lim Soo Aun says it is quite easy to spot someone who is over-exercising.

   “They usually look tired or haggard and worn out. Though they exercise regularly, they appear to be struggling just to complete a basic task,” he says.

   “The most one should work out at a stretch is an hour or 75 minutes. Anything longer than that and your body shuts down. You will still be able to work out but your body will be using reserve energy. You burn fat in the first hour. After that, you start burning muscle and you will lose muscle mass,” he says. “If you want to work out for longer, it’s better that you break it up into two sessions – one in the morning and another in the evening so your body has time to rest.”

   Simran adds: “Some of the signs that you may be training too hard is that your legs will constantly feel heavy, your training capacity decreases, you tire faster and feel weaker, and you cannot push yourself as hard as usual. Psychologically the biggest indicator would be a sudden loss of motivation and enthusiasm to exercise.”

   Have a plan

   It is always important to start with a plan, says Lim who was a trainer at Fitness First before he started his own outfit.

   “You need to identify your fitness goals. Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to improve your general fitness? If you have a plan, you will be more focused and you will achieve your goals. If you don’t have a plan and you do the same exercises every day, it can become pointless,” says Lim who is a freelance trainer.

   “The thing about overtraining is that you won’t feel it until it hits you. You could be experiencing joint or muscular soreness and if you don’t pull back, you run the risk of more severe injuries,” says Lim, who suggests staggering workouts.

   “Don’t work on the same areas every day. For example, if you work on your upper body today, you should concentrate on the lower body the following day and allow the upper body time to rest,” he says.

   “Everyone is not made the same. It’s important to have a fitness programme designed specifically for you; you will make better progress and minimise chances of injury,” says Prabaharan.

   Recognising that not everyone can afford to engage a personal trainer, which can cost RM100 an hour at a premier gym, Prabaharan offers an easy and cost-free solution.

   “The least you can do is educate yourself about what you should and shouldn’t do. There is a wealth of information on the Internet which anyone can access easily. You have to know why you are training – is it to improve your strength, your cardiovascular fitness levels, your endurance or flexibility?

   “It isn’t the same as having an experienced trainer guide you but it’s a lot better than being ignorant,” he says.

   Prabaharan runs his own practice in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, where he rehabilitates not only athletes but also patients referred to him by doctors or hospitals.

   fr:thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/8/9/lifefocus/6513792&sec=lifefocus

3. alan on August 9th, 2010 at 9:22 pm

   Adrenalin rush

   FRIENDS and fellow bootcampers Tan Ee Lyn and Suloshini Jahanath admit that they are addicted to Bootcamp – not national service training but the Original Bootcamp Sdn Bhd, a military-style group training programme that has its “recruits” perform a variety of high intensity exercises, almost non-stop for 60 minutes.

   “We joined bootcamp in November 2009. We didn’t immediately fall in love with the training. After the second day of bootcamp, I couldn’t walk. After two weeks I wanted to walk away. But we’d paid for the month and so we decided to stick with it,” recounts Suloshini, 27.

   After a month, the two were singing a different tune.

   “We had our first assessment during which the trainers gauged our levels and we discovered that our times and fitness levels had improved so much in that one month. We were amazed and thought, ‘Hey! this works’,” says Tan, 26.

   The positive results from their first month at Bootcamp spurred the two to sign on for another month. It has been almost eight months and there is no stopping the duo now.

   “The adrenelin rush at the end of a session is really great. You know you’ve worked so hard … sometimes to a point you either want to throw up or cry.

   “You ache so much but it still feels great because you’ve accomplished something. I am doing things that I never thought I could. And this goes beyond bootcamp. I recently took part in a 10km run; I never would have before,” says Tan.

   Tan and Suloshini train at Padang Merbok in Kuala Lumpur three times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) at 5.45 in the morning. Before the sun even rises, the two and dozens of other bootcampers are busy working up a sweat and sometimes, rolling around in the mud (literally because unless there’s lightning, the bootcamp sessions go on).

   Missing a session is something they both dread.

   “I’d feel irritable and out of sorts the whole day. It’s taken over our lives. And it’s not just us; the whole group feels the same way. There’s a very active Bootcamp group on Facebook and we discuss our training sessions everyday,” says Tan who recently went for bootcamp training on three consecutive mornings because she was going to be away and miss her regular Friday class.

   “I am addicted to Bootcamp. It’s like chocolate – only healthier,” says Sulo.

   Though their fitness levels are up – they can do 50 push-ups without batting an eyelid – the two admit to being tired most days. Plus, because of the early morning sessions three times a week, they’ve had to curtail their social activities.

   “We sleep early, maybe around 9pm the night before our bootcamp sessions,” says Tan,

   Though the duo display some signs of exercise addiction – they are obsessed with training, suffer withdrawal symptons when they have to miss a session, etc – the girls insist they know when to stop.

   “I don’t want to run the risk of injury because then I won’t be able to work out at all. Since I’ve started running, my knees are starting to creak a little, so I’m going to ease up on the running,” says Tan.

   Suloshini adds that safety is a concern at bootcamp and if a “recruit” has an injury or a physical or medical condition, the trainers adjust their workouts accordingly.

   Lead trainer of Original Bootcamp Sdn Bhd Simran Latif describes the two as being enthusiastic about training, rather than exercise addicts.

   “Bootcamp is a relatively new fitness genre in Malaysia. The whole concept in Original Bootcamp is to instil a sense of discipline and camaraderie amongst the group, so we maximise our training time. Being a bootcamper is like being part of a fraternity.” – By S. Indramalar

   fr:thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/8/9/lifefocus/6524798&sec=lifefocus