TMI - Too Much Intensity

You know what our problem is on a physical level?

We don't understand the notion of intensity.

Our notion of intensity is defined based around the numbers on a treadmill. We think to ourselves, jack this number up and keep it there, and the longer we keep it there the better we're going to be.

The problem with this? The problem is that it's far too much stress for far too long. Intensity works best in brief, short spurts of activity. Lifting weights, sprinting, things like that. Driving yourself down into the ground like that has a tendency to cause stresses all throughout your body, beyond the scale of what it can actually heal.

In the case of running on a treadmill, you're flirting with overuse injuries as you keep crashing down from foot to foot. If it's a heel strike pattern, you're smashing your knees. If it's toe strike pattern, you're flirting with injuries in your foot.

This isn't even getting into the cortisol issue. Cortisol is a great hormone, not bad in and of itself. It triggers adrenaline, and in the proper doses is incredibly beneficial. The problem, though, is that we end up dosing ourselves with far more cortisol than we actually need.

It's not that the substance is bad. It's the dosage.

In the doses that we expose ourselves to, cortisol causes a number of different problems:

• It leads to proteolysis, the breaking down of muscular tissue into smaller amino acid chains.
• It reduces bone formation, creating a metabolic environment that favors osteoporosis.
• It increases blood pressure.
• Most importantly: it interferes with your sleep, resulting in a messed-up hormonal reset. The growth hormone you secrete when you sleep and the rebalancing between estrogen and testosterone is impinged. You get less restful sleep, and you're weaker in your daily life.

You end up in a vicious cycle - you're weaker, so you have to work harder, which stresses you more, which makes your sleep worse, which makes you weaker.

It's not a happy place to be. But we tend to think that we have to be there. We can't rest. Rest is for the weak and the dead, and we're neither one of those, are we?

Here's reality: intensity is only one side of the coin. There is another side as well. Becoming truly fit requires you to understand both sides.

What is the other side?

Leave your thoughts below, and stay tuned...