People who are extremely unfit tend to have no frame of reference for what a productive workout feels like. They are highly likely to push themselves too hard and then not give their bodies enough recovery time. Encouraging people in this situation to "push through it" is setting them up for overtraining leading to injury, illness, or burnout.
Fatigue is one of the most important signals your body can give you. It's a clear communication that you've been pushing too hard and need to reduce the intensity of your efforts. Telling people to ignore that signal for "at least a few weeks" is at best going to be counter-productive for them and, at worst, dangerous.
The person I replied to said they were taking it easy. By push through it I meant keep it up for a while longer even though it made them feel unwell, thinking they would get past the unwellness.
I wasn't intending to suggest anything remotely in the same ballpark as overtraining, that's not the kind of pushing I had in mind.
And when they clarified that they had been doing it for months I just said that's not normal, because a couple of months is beyond the scope I had in mind when I suggested pushing through it. It shouldn't take months. What they describe sounds more like a serious undiagnosed health issue.
> It made me feel horrible. Each time it would take me a few days to recover, feeling dizzy and mentally exhausted.
That doesn't happen with a genuinely easy effort.
> By push through it I meant keep it up for a while longer even though it made them feel unwell, thinking they would get past the unwellness.
Yes, that is really bad advice and will lead to overtraining in a very unfit person.
> I wasn't intending to suggest anything remotely in the same ballpark as overtraining, that's not the kind of pushing I had in mind.
I don't know what you mean by overtraining, but pushing through feelings of unwellness or fatigue and continuing to workout is exactly how you get into that territory.
They also said:
> Very short distances, very slowly and very gradually.
Which does not sound like overtraining to me. Any relatively healthy 30-something should handle that just fine no matter how untrained they are. They should get over the feelings of unwellness etc after a few weeks or at least a few months.
There is clearly some underlying condition causing this, it's not overtraining.
This is really awful advice.
People who are extremely unfit tend to have no frame of reference for what a productive workout feels like. They are highly likely to push themselves too hard and then not give their bodies enough recovery time. Encouraging people in this situation to "push through it" is setting them up for overtraining leading to injury, illness, or burnout.
Fatigue is one of the most important signals your body can give you. It's a clear communication that you've been pushing too hard and need to reduce the intensity of your efforts. Telling people to ignore that signal for "at least a few weeks" is at best going to be counter-productive for them and, at worst, dangerous.