Could You Have an Addiction to Exercise?

Each morning you wake up and run an hour while counting calories throughout the day. You want to be a well-tuned athlete who has low body fat and rippling muscles. You work hard at it and you understand that without pain there won't be any gain. It doesn't matter if you are sick or tired you will be out there jogging, swimming, weight lifting or anything else you are doing.

At some ill defined point you move from a healthy motivation to keep your athletic abilities in pristine condition to being obsessed with working out. You are addicted to the concept of being in perfect condition and addicted to the morphine type drugs your body exerts when it is in overtime. These endorphins become addictive in their own nature.

Excessive exercise can cause your body pain and damage. Tendons, ligaments, bones, cartilage and joints can sustain small injuries that can become serious injuries later in life. These injuries can actually damage a person to the point where it may jeopardize their future athletic abilities.

Most dieticians recommend that a person burn around 3,500 calories a week to achieve maximum exercise benefits. When a person burns more calories then this they only receive mild benefits and actually increase the risk of injury. Therefore there is a balance when it comes to physical fitness.

You know when you are addicted to exercise when you feel large amounts of anxiety for missing a work out. Missing a single exercise will create feelings of anxiety which in turn becomes irritability. Few people can talk to you when you haven't gotten in the exercise that you are accustomed to.

The other sign of addiction is when you receive and injury and simply refuse to quit your work out. In your mind you tell yourself that if you "muscle your way" through it everything will be better tomorrow. The problem is that you aren't giving your body a chance to recover and this can become chronic.

A good concept to keep in mind is that strength and agility doesn't come from the exercise but from the recover afterward. When muscles are ripped they become stronger when the muscle mass forms between the newly created crevices. If this doesn't happy your muscles will become weaker by the day.

It is a good idea to take off at least one day a week for rigorous athletes. This one day allows the people to not only recover but to free themselves from the time burden that exercise causes. They should be free to do what they want throughout the day without worrying about getting to the gym.