I’ve been planning to write something more on exercise addiction for a while now, but since Matt Perryman has done it–and probably better than I would have–I decided to link his post here. Here is an excerpt:
An inadequate stimulus doesn’t trigger any response. An extreme stimulus overwhelms the organism, causing more harm than good. The hump, a moderate stimulus, is where you want to be. Too little won’t do anything and too much is harmful.
Extremism captures the thought process of many exercise fanatics. If some is good, more must be better. This probably isn’t a conscious thought process in most people; I’m convinced that, much like overeating, exercise addiction hides beneath our rational minds, and that allegedly rational mind later rationalizes our actions.
Here you can read more of “Pain Isn’t A Virtue [Muscle & Strength Gains].”
A warning: if you’ve got the attention span of a goldfish and/or you possess a fourth-grade reading level, just go ahead and skip this–I’m sure some infomercials are playing somewhere, or there’s an episode of Jersey Shore about to start, which should be more your speed.
-Stacey
