Overcome by grief, Alex ran, until she reached ‘exercise burnout’

She upped the exercise ante after her mum died in her late 20s to try to mask her grief, only to end up with a knee injury.

“Running kind of beat out the emotional pain, but the injury forced me to slow down and assess things,” she says. “In retrospect, I think it would’ve been more helpful to have done exercise such as walking and stretching and swimming, that helped me feel the grief and process it, rather than just closing my ears to it.”

If you’re trying to build your fitness, training for a challenging event or simply trying to cement a habit of regular movement, it can feel like you’re letting yourself down if you take a day off or veer from your training plan.

But Alex Parker, Victoria University professor of physical activity and mental health, says recognising when you need rest can have a valuable flow-on effect into the rest of your life.

“If you’ve got aches and pains and your [training program or] recovery is impacting your sleep or disrupting your work schedule or how you connect with family and friends, that’s probably pushing yourself to a point where it’s no longer helpful or healthy for you,” Professor Parker says.

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“It might be that your body needs 24 hours of doing nothing, or it might be that you need to check in about your motivations for doing this training.”

Professor Parker says one skipped session won’t derail the fitness “base” you’ve built.

“If you’ve been working really hard in your training and in your everyday life with work and other commitments, it’s OK to take a break,” she says. “Take a breath and think about what you would say to a friend who was coming to you with the same situation.”

Often Professor Parker says some light movement is the ideal compromise. “Some movement is better than none for our mental health, so it’s important to plan for tough or tired days – so if you’re not feeling up to that really long run, maybe doing some gentle stretching or meditation will be beneficial for restoring the body and preparing to work harder next time,” she says.

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And if you’re continuously skipping sessions, Professor Parker suggests finding a physical activity that you actually enjoy.

“For those people who absolutely love doing high-intensity exercises, and they get a lot of joy and achievement from it, don’t make a change,” she says. “But if your body’s saying, ‘This is not the right approach’, then be flexible and try as many things as possible to find the things that give you an immediate mood lift or make us feel positive … because then we’re more likely to do it again.”

That’s something that rings true for Kingsmill, who has ditched gruelling workouts for nature walks and pilates. “I’m much better attuned to what exercise feels punitive and what feels nourishing,” she says. “It’s been a process of learning to tune into my body and distinguish from what I ‘should’ do and what I really want and what my body needs.”

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