Mix Up Your Workouts Without the Burnout
Are you enjoying your workouts? Are they fun? Do they make you feel like a child at the playground, shrieking with joy and enjoying the simple pleasure of moving your body and feeling great?
Or, do you feel they’re form of punishment and you find you’ll let any little excuse be reason enough to skip getting your sweat on?
If it’s more of the latter, you may be experiencing “workout burnout,” where both physical and emotional factors play a role.
Without a doubt, doing the same exact workout day in and day out will put you at higher risk of an overuse injury compared to an approach in which you do a little of this and a little of that in order to achieve a more balanced regime.
Cross training is one of the easiest means to add a little variety to the mix. You can choose your best fit for variability based upon what might be currently lacking in your exercise regime.
If you’re a runner, consider getting in the pool. Not only is swimming therapeutic, it can also help to increase circulation and provide an aerobic workout without all the pounding.
Perhaps you’ve developed an insanely strong core from all those hundreds you’ve been doing in Pilates, but you find yourself getting winded climbing up a flight of stairs. Add an activity that pairs incline with exercise to get your heart pumping.
Practically speaking, addressing the physical component of workout burnout is often easier than its emotional counterpart.
If you’ve overdone the running by doing too much too soon, for example, or are running on poor surfaces or in the wrong shoes, but you’re like me and find that your love of running supersedes all other forms of workouts, it can wreak emotional havoc to have to consider pulling back or doing something else in its proxy.
On the other hand, you simply may not be able to think of a type of exercise you find remotely appealing. Sometimes this too can occur from a burnout.
A few personal friends who were forced to race track and join swimming from a very young age reached a point where they were “so over it.” There was no interest in participating anymore, despite how talented they may have been.
In other cases, lacking a positive connection to physical activity in the first place can make your entire history with exercise a negative experience.
Finally, some are timid to try something new because of the risk involved. If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me how can it be that I’m not terrified to ride my bike on PCH with all that traffic….I’d have a lot of nickels!
Here’s the bottom line: we are meant to move and the more ways in which we move, the better off we’ll be.
Incorporating cross training in some way, shape, or form can help:[1]
- Decrease risk of overuse injury
- Help with rehabilitation if an injury has occurred.
- Improve fitness in the single sport you were already doing
- Provide Active Recovery
- Enhance Your Motivation
- Keep You Rejuvenated
- Provide an Opportunity to Enjoy Other Sports
- Keep You Fit During Pregnancy
Don’t forget how powerful the mind is. Whatever it decides, the body will follow and that goes for things both negative and positive.
If you’re experiencing workout burnout, or injury, or you never enjoyed it in the first place, set it all aside and go with right here, right now. You have the opportunity to couple your healthy Paleo eating habits with movement in any way, shape, or form. When you find the exercise most appealing, you’ll walk (or run!) further down the path to optimal health.
Do you have a body that works? Use it. It’s a gift and you only have one! There is no good reason to not give it every opportunity to be at its best!
REFERENCES
[1] “Eight Benefits Of Cross-Training.” Runner’s World & Running Times. N.p., 22 Nov. 2004. Web. 06 May 2015.
