The saying used to be “Go hard or go home.” But now, with much of the world stuck indoors, many people are going incredibly hard with intense workouts because they’re at home.
As a certified strength and conditioning specialist, this thoroughly freaks me out. I first noticed the trend when, early into stay-at-home orders, several of my typically nonexercising friends started inviting me to share my workout info and “compete” with them through our Apple Watches.
While I was glad they were focusing on their physical and mental health, I also noticed some more troubling things: They had astronomical daily goals for calories burned, were performing hours of high-intensity workouts seven days a week, and never logged a single recovery workout—say, like a leisurely walk or gentle yoga session—as a break from the intense stuff.
Despite the fact that I take a pretty even-keeled approach to exercise, both for myself and the clients I train—I’m cool with pushing hard, but also prioritize recovery and think exercise should be fun and feel good—I increased my own goals to level out our “competition” field. It didn’t seem fair, I thought, that I could “win” our daily and weekly competitions by exercising less than my friends were (since I would be more likely to hit my more realistic goals).
After just a couple weeks, fatigue hit hard. One night, after I slept for 15 hours straight, I woke up with a new resolve to stick to my actual, more attainable goals, which included movement breaks, a walk, some type of workout, and some pull-ups each day. That routine was good for my body, helped my energy level, and kept me calm amid the current state of the world—something especially important, considering my own relationship with depression and anxiety.
Even though my experiment with those super-intense workouts was brief, it still made me wonder what the heck was going on. So I reached out to some fitness and mental health experts to figure out what’s behind this intense fitness push, and how to make sure you aren’t going too hard at home.
Quick question: Why are we like this?
At first look, it might seem surprising that so many people are desperate to kick their own butt via exercise during an actual pandemic. But it’s just a function of human nature, our natural stress responses, and, of course, pervasive societal messages about our bodies and their worth.
On a biological level, movement is an innate reaction to stress. After all, epinephrine (also known as adrenaline, the fight-or-flight hormone) functions to mobilize the body. It stimulates your organs and muscles, releases fast-acting carbs into the bloodstream, and allows us to throw punches or run like hell, Minnesota-based exercise physiologist Mike T. Nelson, Ph.D., CSCS, tells SELF.
Cooped up in our houses, under an onslaught of worry for the health and lives of ourselves and those we love, financial strain, and deprived of many of our typical outlets for dealing with stress, of course we’re going to be tempted to run around our homes in circles until our legs give out, he says. Stress primes our bodies to move; it’s like pent-up energy that we need to let off to regain a sense of calm.
Plus, amid all of that stress, cramming our bodies into tightly regimented exercise routines can also give us a sense of control—something that’s obviously very lacking as we deal with the uncertainties of the new coronavirus pandemic.
Simply scroll through Instagram or other social media, and you’ll likely see more high-intensity, grueling workouts than ever before, with captions warning of the “quarantine 15” or encouraging us to make the most out of our newfound free time. For both fitness veterans and newbies, going hard can feel like the only worthwhile option, online strength coach Kourtney Thomas, CSCS, tells SELF.
Although these body-negative messages are nothing new, they are currently capitalizing on our need for control right now, psychologist Renee Engeln, Ph.D., director of the Body and Media Lab at Northwestern University and author of Beauty Sick, tells SELF.
Many of these kinds of workouts are squarely focused on burning calories and “making up” for the fact we’re at home so much now. Never mind that we’re home in the interest of our health and the health of others.
Going too hard can come with physical and mental risks.
There’s nothing wrong with adding challenge to your workout routine. It’s an important part of any fitness journey, right? But right now, pulling back on our exercise intensity and volume—our levels of exertion during workouts, the length of aerobic endurance workouts, or the weight we lift—can be a necessary move, for our mental and emotional health as well as our physical well being.
“Your workload is cumulative,” Jim Beitzel, clinical athletic trainer and clinical coordinator for the Northwestern Medicine Athletic Training & Sports Performance Clinic, tells SELF. “All of these physiological and psychological stressors add up; they blend together.”
And as workload or stress increases, so does your biological need for recovery. It’s that recovery from exercise that allows the body to adapt to exercise, and grow stronger and healthier, he explains.
When you’re already in a stressed state, prioritizing long, intense workouts, max heart rates, and big caloric burns—especially when skipping on rest days—minimizes the physical returns on workouts completed and can lead to potential injury, Allison Tenney, CSCS, tells SELF.
For one, the regular exerciser generally doesn’t employ appropriate recovery strategies to sustain these intense or long-duration workouts, she says. That can be especially true for people trying to mimic what they see from athletes and fitness influencers on social media. They only see the flashy, intense workouts; they don’t see posts on the recovery (eating balanced foods, hydrating, foam rolling, resting, etc.) that allows them to push hard in intense workouts. So viewers think they simply need to push and not recover.
“Without the appropriate recovery, this can lead to hormonal, nutritional, and physical fatigue. You dig yourself a physical hole that becomes very difficult to recover from,” Tenney says. Plus, Beitzel also notes that while exercise can benefit your immune system, doing too much with too little rest may increase the body’s susceptibility to infection, especially when you throw mental stress or other factors into the mix.
There’s also the mental ramifications of “go hard” mentalities. “There’s a big danger of starting a really vicious cycle of setting yourself up for failure and then beating yourself up about it,” says Thomas. “These kinds of hard, intense, long workouts require a lot of you, and on top of everything that’s going on right now, that can be a really tough thing to add on and manage.”
This can manifest as increased mental and emotional stress, fatigue, burnout, feelings of depression, and reduced self-esteem—all feelings that we already are particularly vulnerable to right now, psychologist Lisa Lewis, Ed.D., tells SELF. Not to mention that if you’re using intense exercise as your main coping mechanism right now, it can lead to an unhealthy relationship with your body and exercise, she says. It takes exercise, which has the power to improve our health and happiness, and almost turns it into self-inflicted punishment.
Here’s how to strike a healthy balance when working out in a literal pandemic.
Okay, so where does that leave you and your workouts? Shelving your workout completely—or going so light you don’t feel challenged at all—isn’t the answer, either. Here, experts share strategies for finding balance.
It’s more than a platitude. Even—perhaps, especially—small bits of movement throughout the day can have a radical effect on your health, Thomas says. Studies show that even low-intensity, slow-paced activities of any duration can positively affect your physical health. And further research suggests that accumulated exercise—performing multiple mini workouts throughout the day—may be more beneficial than spending the same amount of time exercising in one chunk.
Consider how you can diffuse some of your workout time and intensity throughout the day. That might look like taking your regular hour-long workout and breaking it up into three 20-minute workouts spread throughout the day. Even though your total workout will be the same, spacing things out will allow for lower levels of total stress on your body.
A simple, foundational way of balancing intensity and recovery is to use the high-low approach: If you do a high-intensity workout today, follow up with a lower-intensity day tomorrow, Tenney says. If you’re a runner, for instance, that may mean you do a tempo run one day and follow it up with a slow, easy recovery run the next.
If you strength train, you can also consider alternating muscle groups worked, especially if you work out more than three or four times per week. Common splits include going back and forth between upper- and lower-body days as well as cycling between push, pull, and lower-body days. Training the same muscle groups back-to-back doesn’t allow for adequate recovery.
If you’re into multiple types of workouts, it’s still important to vary intensity, even if you’re alternating between activities like online workout classes and cycling. So if you do a high-intensity circuit one day, the next day your cycling workout should be on the light side.
By spending your workout time engaged in activities that you find the most enjoyable, you’re automatically more likely to approach your workouts with a feel-good rather than a negate-comfort-foods mentality, Thomas says.
Unfortunately, though, with many of our gyms closed right now, a lot of us don’t have access to the equipment or space that we usually have for our workouts. It’s natural to feel some frustration, but try to focus on how you can get the greatest enjoyment out of what you do have available, she says. Do you prefer cardio? Strength? Plyometrics? Yoga? Circuits or long rest periods of rest between sets? Use that to guide your at-home workouts to get the greatest enjoyment.
Intense, long, or otherwise challenging workouts can definitely have a place in your quarantine workout routine. But right now, your 100% is not going to be the same as it was a few months ago, Beitzel says. That may be because, yes, you’ve lost some strength or endurance. It could also just be because you’re stressed, not sleeping well, or struggling with your mental health.
Whatever the reason, it’s okay. If there’s ever been a time to practice self-compassion, this is it, Thomas says. When you notice your thoughts getting down on yourself, remind yourself that the ultimate goal in exercise is to take care of yourself, and that’s what you’re doing. The benefits you stand to gain from exercise are not dependent on your current fitness or ability levels.
If you feel fatigue or malaise as you begin your workout, don’t ignore it. It’s fine to reevaluate how you feel after 10 minutes to see whether the feeling persists. You might experience a perk in energy and may want to keep going. If so, cool. If you still feel tired, weak, and like you want to curl back up on the couch, that’s a sign that today’s best spent on recovery, Thomas says.
Speaking of recovery, yes, even though we spend most of our nonworkout time right now sitting on our keisters, we still need to incorporate intentional recovery into our routines, Tenney says.
Dedicate at least one day per week into pure recovery activities such as foam rolling, performing gentle mobility exercises, doing some yoga flows, or simply stretching.
Process goals are things like “Do X minutes of yoga in the morning” or “Do Y push-ups every day,” while outcome goals are things like “Lose Z pounds” or “Master a handstand.” The former are far more conducive to a balanced relationship with your workouts and their intensity, L. Kevin Chapman, Ph.D., a Kentucky psychologist and member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, tells SELF.
Take a minute to think through your current exercise goals. It’s natural to have some outcomes in mind, but if you notice they’re all focused on results, consider how you can break them down into processes or doable actions—things that, if you give an honest effort, you can totally do.
If you’re clamoring for some control in your life, good news: Approaching your workouts with a sense of autonomy—think choosing the workouts you like to do, rather than following a cookie-cutter program—can not only help you better enjoy your workouts but also make sure you’re working at a level that’s right for you. Plus, it’ll help you build a sustainable, lasting relationship with exercise.
“Know you always have more options than what is presented to you,” Tenney says. For example, while online workouts can be a great place to start, know that you have free rein to customize them to your needs and likes. Maybe you want to switch out an exercise or two, alternate reps and set, or modify equipment used based on what equipment you have; go for it!
Related
