Last week I had a new follower on twitter whose motto is “if your (spelled incorrectly – correctly spelled is you’re) out of breath, dizzy, feel like vomiting, can’t remember your name you are on the right road”. Why would this individual follow me? They must have misread the name of my blog. Perhaps they thought pain with exercise. After a few days they unfollowed me, most likely because they read on and realized that my blog is the antithesis of theirs. If they had not unfollowed me I thought I would have to search twitter to find out how to block them at some point. Fortunately they have relieved me of this task.
But the more important question is why do they believe that one must feel sick to make gains with exercise? And the even more disconcerting issue is that they had a lot of followers and there are a lot of people who follow this line of thought. Feeling sick, nauseous, out of breath, dizzy are red flags that something is wrong, something, that if not addressed, could have disastrous consequences. These are signs of metabolic events which could change one’s life forever and not for the better. There have been too many instances of severe injuries, resulting from extreme exercise, ending badly. And I am not talking about simple orthopedic injuries. Sure if you overdo it, working in poor alignment, with inefficient body mechanics you can break a bone or tear a tendon or ligament and with time these injuries will heal. Maybe you will use this time to learn how to exercise well. But symptoms of dizziness, nausea, difficulty breathing can mean something much more serious like a stroke or cardiac event. Why would one want to put themselves in such danger?
Perhaps this twitter account said outrageous things to get followed. That is definitely a trend these days. But by condoning a hazardous approach to exercise you are encouraging your followers to put themselves at risk for serious injury. I recommend that this person do some research and understand what these symptoms imply.
Exercise, when done well, has enormous benefits. It improves strength, range of motion, balance, function and sense of well-being. There is no need to put oneself in danger to reap these benefits.