How to Avoid Exercise Burnout

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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Do you work out until exhaustion? How do you avoid exercise burnout?

According to Joshua Waitzkin, the key to avoiding training burnout is to build a rhythm of exertion and relaxation. Not only does alternating between effort and rest help prevent overexertion and injury, but it also increases performance.

Here’s how balancing exertion and rest can help prevent exercise burnout.

Build a Rhythm of Exertion and Relaxation

To excel in the long-term, Waitzkin says to balance effort and rest. To this end, develop a sustainable rhythm of exertion and relaxation. Relaxation is crucial for maintaining your energy and preventing exercise burnout, and it leads to better performance when it’s time to move.

For example, Waitzkin says as a teenager, he would pour ferocious amounts of energy into challenging singular games. Afterward, he’d be too drained to return to that level of performance and would falter throughout the rest of the competition. Later on, he learned how to manage his energy through tai chi and cardiovascular interval training.

(Shortform note: In a 2019 recent interview with Tim Ferriss, Waitzkin said that it’s better to be able to go from a “relaxed zero” to an “intense 10” than to constantly live around a six. In other words, living with constant, moderate tension will keep you drained. On the other hand, learning to oscillate between deep relaxation and intense performance allows you to experience higher highs and more meaningful relaxation. Without one or the other, you can’t consistently access peak performance or real restfulness.)

How to Avoid Exercise Burnout