Dear Heather ... Am I Overdoing It?

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

08 Feb 2007 05:37 AM

Dear Heather,

Recently my Dh bought a gym membership, I love it so much! My mom, who is 80, went with me once and she loved it too. So much she joined so about 5 times a week, in the morning, I take her and I do a light work out also. Then at night after all the kids go to bed I go back and do my real workout. Could this be over doing it?

And what good is the steam room really?

Ollie

Dear Ollie,

Thanks for writing. That's great that your husband gave you a gym membership and greater that you and your mother are both enjoying it. When you say you are doing a light workout in the morning, do you mean you are doing strength training? Flexibility? Cardio? Because my recommendation would be to spend your mornings doing the cardio portion of your workout and then concentrating on strength training and flexibility on the alternating evenings. This way you are not overtraining one set of muscles.

Remember, when strength training, your muscles need 24 to 48 hours to recover. So if you do upper body strength on Mondays, you shouldn't repeat those exercises again until Wednesday or Thursday. One schedule that might work for you would include for your morning workout, warm up and light stretching followed by 30 minutes of cardio and a cool down. (Remember the warm up and cool down are extremely important.) You could also vary the types of cardio workouts (treadmill, stationary bike, elliptical machine, swimming, aerobics class) you do in the morning in order to keep from getting too bored.

When you go back to do your 'real workout' in the evenings, alternate your upper, core and lower body strength training for Monday, Wednesday and Friday - then look for some flexibility on Tuesdays and Thursdays or take those evenings off. This is a very active and rigorous schedule, but it should also help you to prevent accidental injury from over-training the same muscles. If your muscles are not allowed to repair properly you can actually cause yourself serious injury.

Pay attention to how you are feeling, some muscle soreness is to be expected, but if you begin to feel real pain or to feel overly exhausted, give yourself a day off and let your body rest and repair. Remember to keep hydrated and to get plenty of sleep at night. You'll likely sleep better and sounder on this type of workout, but if you happen to spend a night up with a sick kiddo, you need to be sure to give your body time to rest and repair after that.

You should also make sure you have 1 to 2 days a week where you don't work out at all - you may go outside and do more physical activities like playing with the kids, taking them for a fun walk or riding a bike with them - that's fine, but don't do it as a part of your regular workout.

As for the steam room, it's a great way to go in and sweat out some impurities and to help moisten your sinus passages. I wouldn't steam room every day because it can actually lead to dehydration and make you feel kind of ill. You should also shower after you are done with your steam in order to sluice off the sweat and oils released while in the steam room. I find steam rooms particularly helpful during allergy or cold season because so many medications dry out your sinus passages and the steam room can loosen all of that up.

One trick I've used when very stuffy is to put a couple of drops of eucalyptus oil just under my nose and sit in the steam room for ten minutes or so. It will loosen everything up for hours and I can breathe pretty freely. I also wouldn't recommend sitting in a steam room longer than ten or fifteen minutes. And if you start to feel ill, lightheaded or even remotely sick, get up and get out. Steam rooms are very warm and can have an adverse effect on you.

I hope this helps! Congrats to you and your mom! I'd love to hear how your workout is going.

Do you have a question that you want answered? Send it in and if I don't know the answer, I'll do my best to find out more information about it.

For more great questions and answers, check out previous Dear Heathers.

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Women's Fitness: Your Duty to Yourself

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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oweirdo (33643) 12 Feb 2007 01:02 PM

Thank you. I have been doing a 30-45 minute cardio each morning with my mom. Then at night, I do the warm up then strength upper body one night, lower the next night, then a small cardio after that. Mostly swimming, for cardio, then hit the steam room, followed by a shower.