Will you settle a dispute for me? Every time I go on a cardio machine, people walking by stare at me. I think it's because I am pretty hot, but my guy friend says it's because I am always talking on the phone and it annoys people. Can you tell him that no one cares if I talk or not, and that people look at me because they like to? - Future Model, Houston Hall
Regardless of how attractive you are, if the gym were meant for talking on the phone it wouldn't be called The Gym. It would be called Your Room. So get off the phone or get out of the fitness center.
Lately I've been tired and sorer than I usually am. I'm trying to tough it out and just work through it, but it's not working. I don't want to just stop going to the gym because if I miss a day I feel like crap. What can I do? - Random Student on Campus
You seem to be suffering from two things. The first, overtraining, can be easily remedied by taking time off, decreasing the intensity of your workout, or changing your routine to allow your body some active recovery time. Stop lifting for a week and switch to light cardio. Or, if you are on a cardio-based regimen, drop down the intensity and spend some more time lifting light weights. If you are doing a hybrid program that combines the two, you could try decreasing the weight and dropping a set from each exercise.
If you are really in it deep (read: experiencing chronic fatigue and muscle soreness accompanied by a lack of motivation to workout and perhaps some mild depression), then take a week or two off. During this off time, make sure you remain active to some extent, but don't worry about getting to the gym. Go for walks, throw or shoot a ball around with your friends, or go for a light jog. The key here is recovery, so make sure you aren't exerting yourself to an extent that would impede the recovery of your muscles and your motivation.
Too many people underestimate the importance of recovery time. Phenotypic and athletic improvement comes during the recovery phase, so if you don't give your body time to recover, you will not see results.
The second possible ailment is called exercise addiction. It's common in people who have just recently started exercising and have seen favorable results. What happens is that they associate their workout with good results, and consequently do not feel they have 'gotten a good workout' unless they have completed their workout the same way, to the same extent, every time they enter the gym.
In more serious instances, people will continually add intensity to their regimen in an attempt to maintain or accelerate their progress - a basic "more is better" mentality. This could mean an hour or more of cardio every day, 10-plus sets for chest workouts (or they feel they haven't worked the muscle enough), or even a combination of the two. Unfortunately, this method of training is probably the quickest to halt and even reverse the initial progress.
The best way to combat exercise addiction is to immediately change the workout or force yourself to take some time off, no matter how small it seems - even purposely missing a single workout can help your mindset. If you run, try swimming for a week. If you do 10 sets of bench every Monday, work back that day and cut the sets in half. It is obviously easier said than done, but the sooner you become comfortable with variation in your workout, the sooner your results will pick up again. The body adapts to exercise stimulus quickly, and performing the same thing every day will lead you directly to plateau.
If you are still uncomfortable with changing your routine, and just don't feel good about yourself unless you run X miles or perform X sets, or if your fitness regimen stresses you out more than anything else in your life, it may be time to talk to someone in health services about it. Addiction can come in many forms, and exercise addiction can make you just as unhappy as those other, more talked-about ones.
