You are halfway through a high-intensity run or a round of weight training when you suddenly feel nauseous and dizzy. You are forced to stop, sit down and rest to get a steady breath. Exercise-induced dizziness is a common phenomenon, one that most people, fitness professionals and beginners alike have experienced.
Factors that make you dizzy when over-exercising
Exercise can bring many benefits to our physical, mental and emotional health. However, it is not always easy to fit exercises into each person’s schedule. When exercising, it is important that we reap the positive benefits and avoid the negative effects.
Exercise needs to be done voluntarily, not forced, and the practitioner must ensure that they are physically healthy enough to expect to receive the effectiveness of the exercises.
Dizziness after exercise is a common negative effect, but it is very easy to prevent in many cases. Some days we may feel tired and lack of energy during exercise, which is also one of the reasons for dizziness.
In addition, the following reasons can also cause exercisers to experience this condition:
1. Starting or ending the exercise session too suddenly
Just like muscles and joints, our organs can feel uncomfortable when starting or ending physical activity suddenly, so always start with gentle warm-up exercises and end the exercise session with cool-down exercises.
Experts always advise people to warm up and cool down before and after exercise to stretch the muscles and reduce the heart rate depending on the purpose of starting or stopping the exercise to avoid possible injuries and to some extent to prevent dizziness.
2. Eat Before You Workout
Dizziness also occurs when blood flow to our digestive tract and stomach is diverted to the muscles they are working, slowing down digestion and causing discomfort.
If you have eaten within two hours of exercising, the reduced flow to the digestive tract can cause dizziness due to dehydration, which can cause even greater harm to the body.
It is common knowledge that you should not eat right before exercising. Foods high in fat and protein can take twice as long to digest as other foods, such as toast or bananas. This makes them more likely to cause nausea for exercisers.
We should not eat too much before exercising regardless of the food, but easily digestible foods are better before exercising. And try to eat at least 3 hours before your workout.
In addition to overeating, drinking too much water actually reduces the concentration of electrolytes in the body, causing hyponatremia, which causes blood sodium levels to drop sharply. This is also one of the reasons why we feel dizzy.
Experts recommend not drinking too much water and choosing foods that are digested more quickly a few hours before starting to exercise.
3. Exercising in high temperatures
High temperatures make us sweat easily, which can be a great way for the body to detoxify and help us feel like we’ve had a really hard workout. But it can also cause dehydration and low blood pressure, leading to reduced blood flow to the organs, which can make you dizzy
Therefore, if you are exercising outdoors in hot weather, remember to bring and drink water throughout the workout. In addition, slow down to give your body time to recover and cool down. If we practice alternating that with periods of high intensity exercise, our workout can be similar to high intensity interval training (HIIT), which will help the body burn more calories than maintaining a steady pace throughout the workout.
4. You may be overtraining
A common reason why many people feel tired and dizzy after a workout is simply that they push themselves too hard when their body isn’t ready for it. Whether you’re a beginner or already used to your workout intensity, try to adjust it to suit yourself. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t gradually increase the intensity of your workouts, but do it slowly and carefully. Pushing yourself past your limits can lead to a variety of health problems, including injuries and muscle and joint strains.
