How Much Exercise is Too Much?

Ok, I finally admit it. Agreeing to do Insanity every morning with Chad before work was a bad idea. I'm still mustering up as much energy as I can each day to exercise with him for the accountability and encouragement, but speaking for my own fitness and health, it's really NOT working out. To think that I could do Insanity 5x/week, combined with Mini-Marathon training 3x/week and Jillian Michaels' Hot Bod in a Box 1x/week (this month's boot camp series) on TOP of teaching my group fitness classes was really overestimating the strength of one human body.

I've started to live in a constant state of lower back and hip pain/tightness from the sudden increase in running and then all of the up/down, bending over cardio in Insanity (things like burpees, ski abs, hit the floor drills, etc). I've been suspect to IT band sydrome in the past with running, and now with the overload on my muscles, I can feel major issues coming on in my left hip. As for my low back, the only time it's comfortable is either when I'm stretching it or when I'm sitting in my car with the heated leather seats on full-blast. Every time I stand up from my office chair, I have to hobble around until my back loosens up enough to stand up straight and walk normally. My saving grace has become yoga, foam rolling and weekly visits with the guys at CHAMP Chiropractic and our massage therapist Beth Weaver.

For the "Recovery Week" in between months 1 and 2 of Insanity, I did just that--recovered by NOT doing any of the videos. (Because of course I still had my weekly runs and classes.) Shaun T's definition of recovery is not at ALL the same as mine. You still do many of the same cardio drills but at a "slower" pace. Chad successfully completed all 5 days of recovery, and we're now into the first week of month 2. After Mon-Tues of incredibly hard Insanity videos (oh yeah, they're 60 minutes now instead of 40), I took Wed-Thurs off and made Chad go it alone. We will get in the 5th workout tomorrow (Saturday) since it dawned on us that we both are free--so why get up early and work out Friday morning if we can on Saturday around 11?!

I have to realize I'm not an Olympic athlete in training. While I would like to say that I completed the entire series of Insantiy, it's not looking like a feasible or wise choice. Training for the Mini has to be one of my top priorities this year, since I'm leading a pace group each week. I can't get injured this early into the training when we're only up to 6 miles. I'm still struggling to figure out how many Insanity workouts per week I can realisitcally do, and also which days.

As fitness professionals, we always preach listening to your body. But when our own bodies tell us to stop or slow down, we aren't as compliant.