A wrong way of exercising can turn you from a young lady to an old lady. Is this you?

Recently, a fitness girl in Russia has sparked heated discussion. After a year of fitness training, the 24-year-old girl's hair turned gray and her appearance became much older. Everything is excessive. Being too obsessed with fitness may not be able to maintain health, but will also rapidly consume vitality and cause physical aging. You should exercise according to your ability. How much exercise is best for a person every day?

A fitness girl sparked heated discussion because a year of fitness made her look much older, like an old woman. Recently, a 24-year-old Russian bodybuilder posted her fitness results over the past year on a social networking site. However, this set of fitness photos caused heated discussions online. From the photos she posted, we can see that after a year of fitness, her hair turned gray and her appearance became much older. She doesn’t look like a 24-year-old woman at all.

From the photos, we can see that her muscle lines are indeed more obvious, but her hair has turned gray.

Regarding this situation, many netizens believe that this is a sign that she has over-"destroyed" her body, which is why she now looks nothing like a 24-year-old. Some netizens also said that if they didn’t look at her face, they really wouldn’t know she was a woman.

However, the Russian bodybuilder herself said that there is no need to worry about her health, and there is nothing wrong with her hair, which is as good as before.

Exercise, fitness, health and wellness are common sense, but why did this young girl, who has built up a muscular body, age rapidly and her hair turn gray, making her look like a 60-year-old lady? What is going on? Why do we age more when we exercise?

Netizens believe that she is over-exercising and over-damaging her body, causing her organs and tissues to age rapidly. Although exercise is good for health, too much is as bad as too little. The amount of exercise should be determined according to the body's load capacity. If you can only withstand 30 minutes of exercise, then exercise for 30 minutes. If you can run for an hour, then run for an hour. Never try to be too strong. The best level of exercise is to feel a little tired after exercising today, but you can continue fitness the next day. If you are too tired to continue the next day, it means you have overdosed.

The dangers of excessive exercise

Excessive exercise can cause an imbalance in blood and oxygen supply to various organs in the human body, leading to premature brain aging, disrupting the endocrine system, damaging the immune mechanism, and accelerating the wear and aging of the body.

(1) Effects on cardiovascular function

a. Excessive exercise can cause persistent damage to myocardial capillaries, hypoxic damage to cardiomyocytes, and more serious damage to myocardial contractility and relaxation, leading to a decrease in myocardial mechanical indicators, manifested as chest tightness. Irregular heartbeat, increased heart rate at rest and slow recovery after exercise.

b. Excessive exercise can significantly enhance the aggregation ability of platelets, causing abnormal peripheral circulatory function, resulting in tissue ischemia and hypoxia, which may subsequently lead to a decrease in collective athletic ability and anti-fatigue ability.

c. Excessive exercise can sometimes cause a sudden decrease in effective blood volume and a drop in blood pressure, leading to exercise-induced shock.

(2) Effects on the nervous system

Excessive exercise can cause memory loss, dizziness, headaches and insomnia. Symptoms of auxiliary nervous system disorders may also occur, manifested as pale complexion, nausea, sweating, dizziness and tinnitus, and even lead to loss of will, loss of muscle tone and sudden fainting.

(3) Effects on skeletal muscle function

Excessive exercise can cause decreased skeletal muscle function, changes in substance metabolism and even damage to the muscle ultrastructure, disordered calcium ion levels in muscle cells, increased calcium ion concentration and persistent muscle soreness. Excessive exercise can also cause tendon damage.

(4) Effects on gastrointestinal function

It can cause loss of appetite, nausea, and gastrointestinal dysfunction.

(5) Effects on the urinary system

It can cause excessive sweating, reduced renal blood flow, concentrated urine, and produce hypertonic primary urine. During excessive exercise, vasoconstriction causes hypoxia and carbon dioxide retention in the body, leading to acute kidney damage and increased membrane permeability, which may cause exercise-induced diuresis.

(6) Impact on immune function

It promotes the release of hormones with immunosuppressive effects in the body, which results in the suppression of the body's immune function, thus affecting health. During strenuous exercise, the levels of adrenaline and cortisol increase. When they exceed a certain level, the spleen's ability to produce white blood cells decreases, and the activity of lymphocytes and natural killer cells weakens.

Excessive exercise leads to decreased immunity, increased susceptibility to upper respiratory tract infections and other viral infections, causing general fatigue, weight loss, susceptibility to colds, pneumonia, and gastrointestinal infections, and provides pathogenic conditions for the development of immune diseases such as anemia, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes.

(7) Prone to sports injuries

People who have just started physical exercise may sometimes suffer fatigue fractures at the attachment points of bones and muscles due to continuous excessive exercise. Excessive exercise can cause chronic joint strain, which manifests as pain and swelling when the joints are closed. It can also cause the heel pain mentioned above.

(8) Effect on antioxidant capacity

Long-term excessive exercise will reduce the body's antioxidant capacity, increase the production of free radicals, and accelerate aging.

How much exercise is appropriate per day? It is best to exercise for 30 minutes a day

Healthy adults should do at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise 5 days a week, or at least 20 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise 3 days a week. Moderate-intensity aerobic exercise can be walking, jogging, or other activities that significantly increase your heart rate. High-intensity exercise refers to exercise that causes shortness of breath and a sustained increase in heart rate.

1. Moderate-intensity physical activity: requires moderate effort and can significantly increase the heart rate. You will be out of breath during the activity, but you can still talk. Such as brisk walking, dancing, gardening, housework, the body sweats slightly.

2. High-intensity physical activity: requires a lot of effort and causes shortness of breath (unable to talk) and a significantly increased heart rate, such as running, fast uphill walking/climbing, fast cycling, aerobic exercise, fast swimming, competitive sports (football, tennis, badminton, basketball), etc., with obvious sweating.

The intensity of different types of physical activity varies from person to person and also depends on the individual's previous exercise experience and relative fitness.

Through moderate or higher intensity physical activity, the first benefit is the improvement of the body's cardiopulmonary function. Cardiopulmonary function refers to the ability of the human lungs and heart to carry oxygen from the air and transport it to various parts of the body for use. People with good cardiopulmonary function can exercise longer without getting tired quickly, and can also work longer and more efficiently. People with poor cardiopulmonary function are prone to fatigue and lack of spirit. Another important significance of enhancing cardiopulmonary function is to reduce the incidence of diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.

How much physical activity can you fit in?

Moderate-intensity activity: 60 minutes a day for adolescents and 150 minutes a week for adults

An office worker can achieve 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week as follows:

If you walk 1 kilometer on your way to and from get off work every day and take 10 minutes to complete the walk, this is moderate intensity exercise. Take a short break after dinner every day and then take a brisk walk outdoors for 10 minutes. In this way, you can complete 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity every day, and the total amount of physical activity can be completed inadvertently 5 working days a week.

In order to avoid excessive fatigue caused by excessive exercise, people should exercise gradually and within their ability. For example, they should exercise 2-3 times a week, rest for two or three days after each exercise, and choose sports according to their personal age and physical condition. If you suddenly start exercising after not exercising for ten days or half a month, you may easily over-exercise and become overly tired.