Wednesday, October 27, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A • Page 3
Overexercise linked with illness, eating disorders
Though exercising is necessary to maintain good health, overexercising can be detrimental, experts say. Overexercise can cause injuries such as tendinitis, stress fractures, muscle pains and joint irritations.
Photo by Jay Sheperd/
KANSAN
By Amber Steuer
writer@konsan.com
Konsan staff writer
Kylie Colgan, Overland Park junior, works out six days a week for about two hours, incorporating a weight and cardiovascular workout. On less busy days, she often hits the gym twice a day, morning and night.
"I love it." Colgan said. "It's a great stress relief for me. And it feels good too, knowing I'm doing something good for my body."
Although Colgan said the workouts made her mind, body and soul feel better, health experts say exercise can be taken too far.
"Be reasonable, don't set too high of expectations, set a schedule you can maintain," said Larry Magee, coordinator of the sports medicine clinic at Watkins Memorial Health Center. "And listen to your body."
A person's body might send signals of overexercise including injuries such as tendinitis, stress fractures, muscle pains and joint irritations, Magee said.
Exercising very strenuously, often in the case of collegiate and endurance sport athletes, even can cause a susceptibility to illness.
"On the other hand, regular exercise can improve your immune system." Magee said. "It's only when you go to extremes that it can harm it."
When workouts are overdone, they also can impede the goals of the exerciser.
Dennis Jacobsen, Health Sport and Exercise Science instructor, said lifting weights too frequently could stop mus
cle growth. The general rule, he said, was to perform resistance exercises three days a week, or four days at the most. More than that does not leave adequate time for muscles to recover, and muscles will not grow.
Magee said people trying to lose weight would see better results if they exercised at a low level for long periods as opposed to short, strenuous exercises.
Overexercise also can be found in conjunction with eating disorders, experts said, although it does not cause them. Those who overexercise sometimes have an eating disorder such as bulimia, where a person purges and then overexercises to work off the calories.
Knowing how much exercise is too much varies from person to person, health experts say. However, Magee recommended exercisers increase their
workouts by no more than 10 percent a week.
Colgan said exercise could be addictive and that it was possible to take workouts too far.
"There probably is some psychological, if not truly physiological feeling for the need to do it on a regular basis," he said.
Magee said some people even got depressed if they didn't workout.
"I think once you start on a program and you're working out really hard and seeing results, it makes you want to do more," she said. "It can definitely be addictive."
Jacobsen stressed, however, that overexercising was not as common as not exercising at all.
"Overexercise is not a problem," he said. "Getting people to exercise is."
Group plans to save state's land
Edited by Jamie Knodel
By Todd Halsted
writer@kanson.com
Kanson staff writer
The Nature Conservancy will discuss plans to use at least $68 million in private funding to conserve significant habitats throughout the Great Plains at a conference tomorrow in Kansas City.
Alan Pollom, Kansas State Director of the national organization, said a conservation blueprint was created to research and identify ecoregions that species of plants and animals needed to survive during long periods of time. The organization defined an ecoregion as a relatively large area sharing characteristics such as geology, topography and climate and vegetation.
The Conservancy has compiled data about 64 ecoregions in the United States. The organization considers 13 states, including some of the Rocky Mountain states, to be a part of the Great Plains, which consists of 13 ecoregions.
Pollom said that research had been completed on two ecoregions in Kansas and Missouri. These are the "Central Tallgrass Prairie Ecoregion Plan", which includes parts of northern Missouri and eastern Kansas and the "Central Shortgrass Prairie Ecoregion Plan", which includes western Kansas.
"I think this project will do a lot to significantly protect important habitats in the regions. The Great Plains, as a whole, have been overlooked in the past because the landscape is not as magnificent as mountains or seascapes."
Kelly Kindscher Associate scientist for the Kansas Biological Survey
Kansas has four other ecoregions yet to be researched, including the Flint Hills, central mixed grass, southern tallgrass and the Ozarks, which include the southeastern corner of Kansas. The conservation project will continue for five years.
"We're trying something unprecedented in terms of conservation," Pollom said. "It will fail or succeed based on the private funding we can attract in to this effort."
Kenny Kindscher, associate scientist for the Kansas Biological Survey located on the
university of Kansas West campus, said that it brought needed attention to the area.
"I think this project will do a lot to significantly protect important habitats in the region," he said. "The Great Plains as a whole have been overlooked in the past because the landscape is not as magnificent as mountains or seascapes."
The Conservancy is the nation's largest private, non-profit conservation organization, and has offices in every state. It has 1 million members nationally, including 7,600 in Kansas. Pollom said it received 70 percent of its funds from private individuals and the rest from groups and corporations.
The Kansas chapter recently purchased 16,800 acres of land located on the Smoky Valley River in western Kansas, which will serve as the model for shortgrass prairie restoration.
Pollom said $3.5 million from national funds was used to purchase the land that contains some of the last remaining large areas of unplowed shortgrass prairie in Kansas. It is home to a vast array of wildlife including prairie dogs, golden eagles and pronghorn antelope.
"Our state's song talks about where the deer and the antelope play." Pollom said. "But pronghorn antelope don't play very widely in Kansas anymore."
Edited by Chris Hopkins
Banding together for Amnesty
Bob Connealy and Tim Fitzpatrick, Overland Park sophomores, play for the Amnesty International benefit concert last night at the Granada, 1020 Massachusetts St. Five bands including their band, The Draft, played for a crowd of 150 people. The $5 cover charge went toward the Lawrence chapter of Amnesty International. Photo by Nick Krug/KANSAN
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