Extreme Exercise, Extreme Mistake?

Many years ago, my kung fu master warned me that I was over-training. "I show you something and you practice it 5,000 times," he said. I took that as a compliment. I was young and macho and figured that the more I practiced a martial arts technique, the better I would understand it and be able to perform it. I swelled with pride at my teacher's comment, figuring it was a sign he recognized how tough I was, and how dedicated and disciplined too. It took me a long time to realize that his remarks were actually a call to moderation. He was warning me that in pushing so hard I was actually slowing my progress, that such counter-productive training could damage my health. He was telling me, in his oblique and gentle way, that I was "training dumb".

It happens that my chosen branch of Chinese kung fu (Chen style tai chi) develops the body right down to the bone and rewires the brain to see different options and responses and move in profoundly new ways. Such changes take a long time, which is why there aren't too many tai chi masters around and very few younger than 60. Tai chi is extreme in this respect, but the principle applies to any exercise or sport. The body has a certain pace at which it can adapt, change and grow in response to any exercise. Yoga practitioners don't drop into challenging postures during their first class, bicyclists don't forge up the Alps in world record time the first time they straddle a two-wheeler, and runners don't break the tape the very first time they strap on sneakers.

A couple of weeks ago I was on the stair climber at my local South Florida gym. Three women were "climbing" next to me, chatting as they pumped it out, occasionally sipping water and wiping their brows. "My trainer says I do too much cardio," the woman in the middle said. "Can you imagine anything so stupid? There's no such thing as too much cardio, right?"

The fact is that after a certain point our body begins to draw energy from muscle tissue instead of stored fat, thus degrading fitness rather than increasing it, but beyond that I wonder about the values and priorities lurking behind the "too much" question. The balanced view, of course, is that we can certainly have too much, just as we can have too little. The idea of never too much goes hand in hand with never enough. The feeling of not having enough may stem from a sense of lack. A sense of lack reveals neediness, which in turn speaks of what is to my eye a gaping emotional hole in our society, one we fill with various and sundry self-gratifications including over-eating, over-spending, and, of course, over-exercising.

Evolutionarily, dashing around at a mad and madder pace was something we did when the neighboring village of cavemen invaded with clubs, or when the tiger was chasing us or the river overflowed its banks and threatened to drown us. Stressed, we responded in emergent fashion, and hormones like adrenaline and cortisol coursed through our bloodstream. Such activity had unpleasant side effects, but it saved our lives. We hoped and prayed to do it rarely. Today we engage in all sorts of extreme sports and only rarely are they designed (martial arts training and perhaps parkour, the urban running and climbing and jumping featured in the recent James Bond movie Casino Royale, are among the exceptions) to enhance our survival in the face of danger.

One of my tai chi students is an extreme athlete. A man of middle age, he regularly pushes himself to the limit. He revels in the extreme athleticism of breath-hold diving and virtually worships the Tour de France cyclists. Recently he came to tell me he had cancer and was headed for surgery. I can't say I was completely surprised. He'd been depressed, hated his job, and was constantly looking to change his life but felt he couldn't.

I wonder if, like the misguided romantic looking for love in all the wrong places, some compulsive, driven exercisers are not looking to numb the pain of life with endorphins or fill a life otherwise lacking in meaning with a routine that cannot bring it. It seems to me that it's fine to gradually increase one's level of activity, but perhaps the measure of athletic achievement should be less about how fast you run than how long you run and how well you avoid debilitation injury. Eastern practices bring the perspective that exercise is a longevity practice, something well known to tai chi players and yoginis, but I don't think one has to do these practices to embrace their philosophy. I think one could play badminton this way, or even croquet, and still grow healthy, enjoy the sport, have a lean, trim, muscular, strong and attractive body, and live a long time.

My student is thankfully now recovering well and, in the wake of his illness, far more receptive to emphasizing health and long life as opposed to breaking records. I feel certain that he now looks differently at weekend warriors who burn themselves out, compromise their immune systems, and then suffer colds and influenza only to get out there and do it again. He may even have a different perspective on athletes who compete for outrageous salaries only to become decrepit or die using performance-enhancing drugs before having a chance to enjoy their money.

I hope you enjoy exercising as much as I do. I also hope you'll consider tailoring your program and your goals in your chosen activity to support a long career, a life full of the pleasure of using a healthy body. Might it not be better to be a star pulsing in the heaven of fitness rather than a meteorite that burns brightly but then suddenly falls?

Follow Arthur Rosenfeld on Twitter: www.twitter.com/machobuddha

Comments

[Marly Silverman]

Arthur,
Arthur, Great Post! The feedback I read, also encouraged me to leave one. For someone like me who has a health challenge like chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS-ME), pacing is extremely important. If I don't pace myself based on how the day presents itself to me, it will create the imbalance that results in a CFS relapse, leaving me unable to exercise and/or even function on the next day. My mantra is: I exercise to live, not to live for exercise. It works for me. I walk with my dog and husband, play catch with Boomer (the dog), tend to my garden with my husband's participation, meditate, dance in moderation to music of all kinds, and I am back doing aqua-therapy during the summer months. Most importantly to me is to stretch daily & religiously. I practice aggressive rest between exercise activities and my other daily activities. Within my limitations, I am happy and healthy-oriented. Life is Good!
Marly

[Scott Masterton]

This is such a great post, and so appropriate to what I was just reading today. The late (recently), great Helio Graicie was discussing the best way to learn Jiu Jitsu. He said (I'm paraphrasing) that true growth happens when you practice with joy in your heart and a smile on your face. He said that there was no real need to complete the hold in practice, only flow from one movement to the next, allowing your partner to practice with you without having to "tap". No need to have ego involved, no need to "win". In fact, he felt that there was no need for your partner to even feel like he had been defeated or beaten in any way. In the way, both practitioners would grow and neither practitioner would become attached to winning or losing.

Peace,
Scott.

[Arthur Rosenfeld - Huffpost Blogger]

Scott,
Thanks, as always, for being such an enthusiastic fan of my writings.
This is a wonderful contribution. It makes me think very much of both my teacher and grandmaster, Chen tai chi "savants" both, who reminded me over and over again never to have a plan and never to get attached to winning or By coincidence I happen to be writing a passage about this right now, in my new book on Lao Tze. Essentially he said that to have a plan is to shout down the stethoscope. The Way is quiet and subtle and wonderful, but if you fill your head with plans and expectations you won't be able to respond to life's changes and challenges—you won't, in short, be able to flow.
Arthur

[Scott Masterton]

So true. I, unfortunately have spent many years shouting down that stethoscope. Hopefully God yanks them out of his ears now and again or the poor old boy would be deafened by my plans.

Grandmaster Gracie lived to be almost 96 and practiced every day; and if he practiced what he preached about light goal-less practice then that certainly is a testament to the idea that moderation is healing. I've found that as I have aged that more emphasis on a Yin type practice (martial and otherwise) has allowed me to keep my vigor and even have extra to spare when the need arises.

Hopefully you plan on publishing your ruminations on Lao Tze; I'd love to read them.

Peace,
Scott.

[rpr]

Check out Dean Karnazes. 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days.

[Lionel De Mun]

The main problem in exercising is that a lot of people are not receptive to the signs that their body send
them, wanting to be "tough" rain or shine.
When I was younger (up to my midfdle forties I's d say) I never had enough exercise : a day was lost if I hadn't at least run, bycicled, swom, played tennis, lifted barbells or wrestled at least one hour, and I frantically tried to catch up in doing calisthecics and pump-ups before going to bed (if I had been in classroom all day, or traveling, etc.)
Now at 54, although I'm perfectly healthy, my need for exercise has drastically diminished (without disappearing totally)-dwindled more than the sex drive, oddly enough-so I just adjust, I go to the gym 2 times a week, go for a quiet walk -and feel as good as after 3 hours of fierce exercising when I was 30! It's a liberation of sorts!

[kjstjohn]

LOL! I enjoyed reading an article from the other side of the fence. My problem has always been too much thinking, reading, and working at a desk. I drag my butt to the gym three times a week to endure the misery of lifting weights and I walk (very happlily) about 20 miles a week by the river. All of this is to look and feel good. (Did not have to do that when I was younger but there you have it.)

[stayfitshaun]

This is a Fantastic post!!!!

Everything that you have mentioned here affects so many people in modernized places such as Europe and the U.S.

BALANCE and PACE is what it's all about, wether it be a career, exercise, relationship or what ever. In regards to exercise, i am glad the whole 'steroids' look of the 80's is dead and not cool anymore. Steroids alone defeat the objective of pacing yourself.

I always have believed that the body can do just fine with all that nature has to offer. Everything else out there that you take, you are taking to speed up the process, which quite often leads to slowing you down in the long run 'As this article has pointed out'. For all those out there that are into the whole 'RUSH' thing, slow down.

A lot of this applies to 1st time entrepreneurs. They read articles of individuals that supposedly built success almost overnight, get worked out and flame themselves out. I guess thats good PR for you eh.

I guess we should all spend some time in the east side of the world...and slow down.

Again, great article
Shaun
www.stayfitbug.com

[faceplant]

At one point I trained with weights for 2 hours a day, 6 days a week. The interesting thing about this was, I started to gain less and less, and I felt tired all the time. I started to get constant colds and flu-like bugs, boils, sties. Through overtraining, I had impaired my immune system and was stunting my growth. I cut back to between 3 and 4 hours a week of weight training, and pretty quickly felt better, besides which I added 30 lbs. of muscle. No resorting to steroids, either. I would probably have had to do that to continue lifting for 12 hours every week. I see people doing too much in gyms and other settings all the time. I no longer try to explain this to people. Their minds are closed. What I'm accomplishing is the flouting of rules of social discourse and the wasting of my breath.

[SeriousBlack]

I've thought for a long time that so-called "extreme" sports are an unhealthy aberration of our society over the last 20 or 30 years.

What are triathlons up to now? Several miles of swimming, over 100 miles of biking, and THEN a marathon? Are you kidding me?

Even a marathon all by itself breaks down the body in an unhealthy way. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for sports in general (I was a basketball fanatic in my youth and played on league/school teams from age 8 through college).

But what is this sickness with more, more, more and ever more extreme? Where does it stop? Swim for 100 miles, bike for 1000 miles, and run 5 marathons in a row - all in a row with no sleep?

There's a point where things like this are simply abuse of one's body. It seems like some type of psychological illness to me.

[singermuse]

Excellent article!
So many people who start out exercising over-train because they think if a little is good then lots would be better! Then they injure themselves and give up exercise altogether. It's about finding the right amount for the individual's needs. Recently I read that the old idea of 30 minutes a day was replaced by 1 hour or even more a day of exercise for those who want to lose weight. For beginners trying to start out this is much too much! Easy does it is a much better way to start and get people to continue. Success will build upon itself, but throwing a huge challenge at people can just discourage them when they are trying to climb their way out of the hole of obesity and chronic conditions. They need all the encouragement they can get, not unrealistic challenges.

[Sinick]

Thank you Teacher for imparting your wisdom on us. Will you accept this cup of tea? Multiple kowtows to you . . .