Right before my pelvic injury, I was doing lots of cross training. My treadmill has a 2-mile Army Fitness Test where you run as fast as you can for 2 miles and then it gives you a score out of 100.
Being competitive by nature, and also having past experience with short distance races, I jumped at the chance to do an Army Fitness Test. It was all the motivation I needed.
I was also commuting into Toronto everyday for work and was pressed for time in the mornings. A quick, breathless two miles seemed like the perfect compromise on certain mornings when I was pressed for time.
I ran 3 Army Fitness tests before my injury (two in late December one in January)
Army test #1, Army test #2, Army test #3
When someone tells me to run 2 miles as fast as I can, I take it very seriously. I pushed myself hard. If only I had known how hard speed work like this can be on the body. Because I had never been injured before, and I was a beginner, I was a bit ignorant to it all.
On top of this intense training, I was also doing the 30-Day Shred and I had also just introduced yoga into my life. I was trying to do everything all at once!
For those of you who have done the 30-Day Shred, you know how hard the plyometrics moves can be on your body. There are tons of jumping squats and lunges, and I was frequently sore after each Shred.
I have also been documenting my daily training since about December 2008. This is what the week prior to my injury looked like:
Monday Jan. 5, 2009: 2 mile Army Fitness test + 1 mile easy run
Tuesday Jan. 6, 2009: Cross-training: Jillian Michaels 30-day shred, Level 2, 7.5 lb weights
Wednesday Jan. 7, 2009: 4 mile tempo run (1 m 6.0 mph, 2 m 7.0 mph, 1 m 6.0)
Thursday Jan. 8, 2009: OFF
Friday Jan. 9, 2009: 5 mile easy run (1 m 6.0 mph; 4 miles 6.5 mph) + 30-40 mins. yoga
Saturday Jan. 10, 2009: Cross-training: 30-Day Shred (Level 1) + 50 mins. yoga
Sunday Jan. 11, 2009: 8 mile long run, 6.0 mph, incline 2% (Pelvic area was sore after this run)
Monday Jan. 12, 2009: Cross-Training: 15 mins. Yoga (I think I further aggravated my pelvic area with strenuous yoga moves)
Tuesday Jan. 13, 2009: 3 mile tempo run (6.5-7.0 mph, incline 3%) [Note: I ran these 3 miles when my pelvic area was already sore! Bad, bad idea. Don’t do this!]
So as you can see, it is not too surprising that I got injured!
After Jan 13th’s run, I didn’t do one ounce of exercise- not a lick- for 2 months. That is how bad my injury was. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t cause my pelvic muscle pull to worsen or cause myself a stress fracture. Caitlin called me ‘A physiotherapist’s dream patient’, referring to how well I stayed off exercise during my injury.
In all honesty, my injury scared the crap out of me. I had never been injured before and always assumed that more equaled better. The more I run, the more fit I will be. The more I can bend in yoga, the better it will work. The more frequently I do the 30-Day Shred, the more toned I will be.
However, just like I am learning from blogging, quality trumps quantity any day. The more exercise I did, the more vulnerable my body actually became.
Last winter, all of the blogs were buzzing with 30-Day Shred and yoga. I think I got caught up in the excitement. I wanted to do the Shred, I wanted to do yoga, and I wanted to run a marathon. Instead of approaching all three with a sane and moderate game plan, I attacked each one with all that I could give. Why do 15 minutes of yoga when I got do 60 minutes? Why do the Shred once a week when I could do it 3-4? It is a dangerous trap to fall into.
My injury taught me many lessons. One of which was that exercise is best approached in a slow and steady manner. Had I not dived into the Shred and yoga with such intensity, I probably would still be doing it right now. But I stopped because it was overwhelming.
I have also learned to be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day (cliché, I know) and we shouldn’t expect our own bodies to transform over night. Doing 20 minutes of yoga each week over 1 year is much better than doing it for 3 hours a week for 1 month.
Whenever I hear that voice inside my head telling me I’m not doing enough, I tell it where to go. ;)
Some tips on avoiding over-training:
1) Redefine superwoman
- As women, we don’t need to do it all. Something will give, eventually. Whether that be an injury or physical/mental burn out. Being a superwoman does not mean you have to do everything. I’m super, you’re super, and we’re women. Capiche?
2) Be A Good Listener
- When your body cries out in pain, give it rest. No ifs or buts about it.
3) Be true to you
- Try not to fall into the comparison trap, online or offline. Do what works for you and you only. If you hate running, pilates, or zumba, don’t do it. And let go of that guilt while you are at it.
4) Tackle one thing at a time
- Since I have been training for my half marathon (on Sept 27th), I have realized that my training doesn’t leave me much time for other fitness goals. And that is ok! One thing at a time done well, is much better than several things done with an empty tank.
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Do you ever get caught up in over-training and the mentality that you need to do more and more?
Has over-training ever resulted in an injury for you? What did you change as a result?
Do you feel pressure to ‘do it all’?

You can do anything, but not everything.
—David Allen
I feel a ton of pressure to do everything! I also feel like I need to run further and faster than I should be able to at this point in my training. I am trying to take it slow to avoid injury but it’s so hard when you see other people doing everything!!
Great post!
*Love* this post! It is so easy to get caught up in the “more is automatically better” trap. My foot is sore right now and I don’t think it’s from overtraining, but I’m still freaked out. :/
Great post! Isn’t so typical of women to overextend ourselves, no matter what we do!?
Not particularly the type of overtraining you’re talking about, but up until a year or so ago, every time I started up exercise I would tell myself I HAD to exercise every day. And of course I would start amazingly well for a couple of weeks and then start to feel guilty when I didn’t exercise every day. Eventually the guilt would become greater than the happiness/achievement I felt when I actually did exercise. When I changed my mindset so that I was ‘allowed’ to exercise as much as I liked, whether that was 6 days a week or one day, exercise became a lot more enjoyable and sustainable.
I think a lot of people feel like you did, that it’s either all or nothing. Moderation is emphasised a lot both on these blogs and elsewhere, but I know I personally found it hard to separate what is good for ‘everyone’ versus what I thought I was worth. We don’t all have to be the fastest, or the strongest, or the most flexible.
This is such a great post! I also fell into the trap of overtraining (last year). I wanted to try my hand at my first half marathon and I thought that the more I increased my miles, then the more prepared and stronger I would be. Wow, I was so wrong. I developed a stress fracture in my foot from building up mileage too quickly. Like you, that injury made me very scared. I rested and didn’t run for 6 months. Now this year, I’m trying again at the half marathon training (which is on Oct. 4) and so far so good! I haven’t gotten injured and I’ve learned to build up my mileage slowly. I’ve really learned to give my body a day of rest if my muscles are tight or if my legs are sore. This really is such a great post.
Dear Ange,
I love this post. Thank you.
Love,
Kristine
:)
Angela, great hot topic! I’ve been a yoga and fitness instructor for the last nine years and see clients and participants over do it all the time. Yep, you can even over do it with something like yoga. Go figure. That said, I’ve been down that road myself a few times. Whether it’s getting into that pose to quickly, holding it too long or even taking a class back-to-back, the do-it-all-be-it-all pressures from work or home life can (and does) trickle into our fitness and health regime, no doubt! What works for me is deciding BEFORE I hit the gym or the mat that the next little while is all about me – no clocks, no “goals”, no pressure. Just me. It’s taken practice, but doing this has actually helped me feel better about my training all around. Keep it up Angela!
Angela, I love this post. Love, love, love. So true!
I was overtraining this spring, and while I was in very good shape, I wasn’t letting my body rest at all. I was tired! I was sore all the time! It wasn’t fun because I didn’t enjoy it – I just wanted to lose weight and tone. It wasn’t until I hurt myself (similarities!) in a non-fitness related activity that I had to stop. And it’s taken me this long to build back my fitness, but I’m enjoying the journey this time. This time I run and lift because I LOVE IT, not because I think that I have to do it. Really makes you change your perspective, doesn’t it.
I want to run a half-marathon next May and I know that I’ll have to start seriously training – but if my body isn’t ready for it, then it’s not ready.
“I’m super, you’re super, and we’re women. Capiche?” Amazing!!
Story of my life! Thanks for posting this :)
I try to be Superwoman every single day. Wife, mother, blogger, cook, friend, yoga teacher, personal fitness goals…yeah, not just in fitness endeavors do I overtrain. I do it in all aspects of my life. Yoga has helped me to let go a bit and to try to be more roll with it, and less control it. But my innate nature is so type A so it’s hard to know when to say when, but I do. I also need to be careful not to overtrain in order to not injure myself. I hear you there! Thanks for the reminder to just chill out sometimes. Most people need to a reminder to get off the couch and get goin’…but I think your readers probably need to be reminded to just chill out a bit sometimes :)
I’m right in the middle of an injury from overtraining. Like you, I push myself till I can’t push any more (in most things I do: work, blog, zumba, etc). I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so everything always has to be better and better and is never good enough. I’m learning with age just how hard I can be on myself sometimes. Anywho, I’ve been working on becoming a zumba instructor and have been trying so hard to impress the instructors where I want to teach that I think I just pushed myself too far. I think I’ve pulled my groin…at least that’s what the dr thinks. Like you, also, I’ve never had many injuries, even though I’ve done athletic things most of my life, so I’m definitely bummed about having to take a break from zumba and even exercise altogether. For now, I’m trying to learn to take more “me time” and to RELAX (which I’m not so good at) and to rest up so I can get better. I’m hoping to go back to exercising and paying more attention to staying in a more reasonable workout level going forward. Thanks for the reminder…great post!
I tried the shred once and could barely make it through – I had no idea it was going to be that hard! I must be really out of shape!
I love your writing, Angela. It’s not like overtraining has never been written about before but you somehow make it so relatable and interesting to read.
I used running as my anti-depressant after a break up and severe loneliness at school. I went from 0 to 40 miles per week in less than a month. Needless to say, I got a stress fracture in my shin! I had to take 3 months off…of course I wasn’t eating enough because I felt out of control not running and continued to elliptical my heart away. It finally healed and I went back to running about 20 miles a week. Then for some reason a couple of months later running just 6-10 miles a week was causing severe pain so I had to stop AGAIN.
Believe it or not (haha) I’m looking to get back into running again. I love it! But it’s been harder than I expected and I’m scared to get injured for the umpteenth time. We’ll see though! Thanks for the post.
Another wonderful post. Overtraining is such a big issue these days – and it seems to be rather prevalent in the healthfood blog world. I think it’s awesome you shed some light on the issue – go Angela!
Great post! I ran everyday and developed runner’s knee last year. Then I was over doing it again and doing the 30 Day Shred and now I’m in PT for IT Band Pain.
This was a wonderful post, thanks so much for writing it! :) I love the blogging community.. and I love, love, love reading blogs, but every now and then I have to pull myself away from them because I am also competitive by nature and find myself wanting to try everything being written about in the blogging world. Or, I would find myself jealous of bloggers being able to do things that I can’t (ie. there would be no room in my dorm room for the 30 day shred or yoga). I have to remind myself that I should be doing what is best for MY body, and what *I* love to do because not everything is for everyone. Moderation is always key!
Wow, this post came at the exact right moment in my life: I’m currently sitting in bed with a heating pad on my back because I think I might have strained my lower back muscle (not sure what that’s called – on my right side…??) by working out too hard this week. I was actually contemplating whether or not I should do my regular workout tomorrow morning and just push through it…and because of this post – I think I’ll take the day off and see how it feels later :) I forget sometimes in my effort to get back into shape that moderation – giving my body some time to rest – is JUST as important as working out! Thanks so much Angela!
How true you are:)
I started training for a century this summer and during that time I started doing p90x 5x a week and I was still trying to do yoga and run once in awhile!! I got super burned out and ended up taking a week and a half off of riding and felt so much better when I came back to it! It’s really hard to have moderation when you’re a type A personality who wants to do it all!!! Have a great day~
I had a similar thing happen to me this past spring. I was trying to train for a 10k AND a triathlon, during my last semester of university. It was madness. My injury happened on my first “long” run (5.6 miles), which fell during exam week. I was spending my days sitting, not sleeping, and stressed to the max. So my body was not prepared for the long run at all. I ended up getting a hip injury that kept me from running for two months, cycling for a month, and any sort of lower body weight lifting for a month. Basically, I was swimming and walking during my key training period for the triathlon.
Anyways, lesson learned! Don’t push my body when it’s not ready to. Way more important to ease into activities than think I can just jump into it all at once!
hahah you are a PT’s dream patient.
I want a medal! haha