It's an interesting phenomenon that I've been coming across as my girlfriend and I talk about our experiences committing to an exercise and nutrition plan. We don't go out of our way to evangelize it, but invariably somebody asks us about it when we're hanging out with friends. People notice how we look and what kinds of foods we are eating, and they want to know more. They get that look in there eyes imagining what it would be like if they were on a program like we are.
Often times, people mention that they get injured when they work out, implying that they could never work out six days a week like we do, because their body would just not hold up. It's always hard to explain that even though we are working out a lot, we are doing it in an efficient way, and since we are stronger now, our risk of injury is lower now than it was before we started.
Also, since we are in good shape and eating right, if we do get injured, we seem to heal faster. I have twisted my ankle a couple times recently, and I wasn't out for more than a couple days. I think a lot of it has to do with a better capacity to heal than I had before, and also I am very concious of taking care of my body, so I have remembered to ice and rehabilitate properly.
I have also been reading in a personal trainer manual, and it said that strength training actually strengthens connective tissues like cartilage, ligaments, and tendons, the parts of the body that are in your joints. I know I used to always have knee pain and ankle pain when I played too much basketball, and now that pain is a lot less or nonexistent. Even when I do play hoops so hard that I feel achy afterwards, I notice that my body recovers much more quickly than before, taking a day instead of three days to be back to normal.
For me, getting on a plan where I workout for no more than an hour six days a week has helped my body to be much more durable and resistant to injury. I think it's easy to think that working out so much would be detrimental to your body, but for most people, I would question how they are working out when they are in the gym. If you're playing basketball for two hours two days a week and that's it, your body may not be prepared for that last hour or hour and a half, which is where the injuries may take place. If you're coming in and doing a full cardio workout, then lifting weight with the upper and lower body twice or three times a week, that's a lot of exercise for one day. If you're working out to the point of exhaustion every day, that seems like a good way to get injured. I'm not a doctor or personal trainer, and I can only go off of my own results and what I have read, but it seems clear to me that overtraining can be counterproductive to good health.
The beauty of having a plan that has produced clear results and following it every day, is that you can make sure you don't push yourself too hard when you feel sore or if you notice a little twinge of pain somewhere. You just back off or do another exercise that doesn't cause pain, comfortable in knowing you are making small improvements every day and if one workout is a little lower in intensity because you are being careful, that you are avoiding injury which will ultimately benifit you because you won't have to sit out for a week because your body is breaking down.
