An Issue of Overcommitting

Is overcommitting to training, gym, or exercising a thing?

I think it is. Achieving your fitness goals doesn’t only depend on the amount of time you spend in the gym, or what you eat. It is also majorly impacted by your life outside the gym. I’ve often been part of conversations where someone says that they’ve been out of gym for a couple of weeks, because their life has been busy and another person would respond that it’s just an excuse. Is it?

Life isn’t an excuse for not training. It’s life. Life outside the gym is just important as inside the gym.

There is a fine line to this, but what I mean is I personally have more time than many to train, so I do. But if you have a lot going on, a family, full time job, whatever it is, you may find less time available to train. It’s not always a case of just making time. We do as individuals have other obligations in our lives.

Can overcommitting be a problem? Yes, in my opinion, it can be. First of all, it can cause friction with other elements of your life, and secondly, something I have seen often is that it can cause an individual to do less than they would if they didn’t overcommit. I’ve seen friends overcommit and try go to gym five or six times a week, when they are only able to go three times a week and end up only going one time or less a week.

It can actually be detrimental because when you can’t achieve your overcommitted times, it’s demotivating and tends to make you think that the rest of the times you do go are pointless.

It’s never pointless, but the best part is that you can actually achieve your goals within the time you have. There are programs, or you can build your own to fit within those life constraints.