Bigorexia: Is Lockdown Revealing Your Sport Addiction?

If the lockdown period is making you suffer because you can’t train as much as you’d like, if you feel bad about not hitting your mileage targets, or if you refuse our advice on reasonable indoor trainer use, you might be suffering from bigorexia.

By Jean-François Tatard – Photos: JF Tatard / Pxhere.com / Pixabay.com

It’s not yet 5:00 AM and you’re already running with a headlamp or pedaling on the rollers. Apparently, this isn’t an exception, as you’re back at it the next day. Then the day after. And so on, until you realize it’s been several months without a single day off. The lockdown period imposed by current events is making you sick, and you spend long hours every day on your indoor trainer. An unreasonable practice from the outside, but you don’t see the problem. Sometimes you’re even in denial, taking risks with your health and alienating those around you…

Like anything good, there’s a risk of addiction. Don’t laugh! Yes, you can become addicted to cycling and running. Running and cycling, like many other sports, and more specifically endurance sports, can end up occupying a disproportionate place in a person’s identity and generate conflicts between the sport in question and other aspects of life. We see a lot of this in triathlon. Athletes who can’t conceive of a day without two training sessions, even if the pace adopted serves no purpose in terms of progression. But they have to get out. Burn calories. Exist. And if you haven’t read Bixente Lizarazu’s book yet, I invite you to take advantage of this lockdown period to devour it. Bigorexia is the theme of this work, and this new trendy word is the perfect name to describe this illness. It is a real disease, recognized by the WHO, and is even treated in sports psychiatry.

And fulfillment in all this?

Specialists from the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches en Psychopathologie define sports addiction in these terms: “An irrepressible and compulsive need to regularly and intensively practice one or more physical and sports activities in order to obtain immediate gratification, despite long-term negative consequences on physical, psychological, and social health.” This definition seems so far removed from the quest for accomplishment that we usually praise in our articles. We must therefore warn against and curb potential excesses so as to retain only the benefits and interests of this fabulous passion we all share for endurance sports.

Bigorexia is an irrepressible and compulsive need to regularly and intensively practice one or more physical and sports activities in order to obtain immediate gratification, despite long-term negative consequences on physical, psychological, and social health.

Planning

A simple rule to avoid this risk is to schedule your training, so as not to get carried away by your sometimes irrepressible desire to always do too much. If you become aware of your problem, you must implement a plan and ensure it is strictly followed. This will result in gratification, thus curbing your urges as a compulsive runner or cyclist. If this has no effect, psychological support may need to be considered… But before reaching that point, setting a goal, following a plan to achieve the result, and learning a training logic with its different phases (development, assimilation, overcompensation, tapering, recovery) is already a good way to protect yourself.

Figures and studies?

Despite many searches on my part, it’s difficult to find well-founded studies on the subject. Nevertheless, from my investigation, what emerges is that:

• Those who intensively practice running or cycling ultimately have the same life expectancy as those who have no physical activity.
• Running or cycling provides many good sensations, so you naturally seek to find them again.
• The amount of sport per week depends on each individual’s very intimate and personal characteristics. The reasonable tolerance threshold is therefore very subjective.

The limits and when you reach the danger zone

Our limits are very difficult to determine. Because they are often biased by many external elements. But also because we are all different. In my opinion, the good indicator is when the constraint is greater than the pleasure. Keep pleasure as your watchword! Pleasure, I would write a book about it if I were allowed. And if God exists, it is for me the most precious resource he has bequeathed to us. Its value is inestimable. Beyond well-being, pleasure promotes learning, excellence, and boosts productivity.

The good indicator is when the constraint is greater than the pleasure.

Personal testimony

I’ve been playing sports since I was 5, and between 15 and 20 hours a week since I was 13. That didn’t stop me from pursuing higher education. And now that I’m almost 40, I spend at least 5 more hours writing or coaching. Besides that, I work an average of 50 to 60 hours a week at a job not directly related to sports, although it has its place in my duties. I also travel a lot for work, and yet that doesn’t stop me from spending time with my wife and two children, taking care of my home, and having a fulfilling social life with my family and friends. Although I am aware of the danger and that this balance requires a lot of vigilance on my part to be preserved, and even more benevolence from my entourage, I no longer experience negative effects from this intensive practice. On the contrary… If happiness could be quantified on a scale of 0 to 10, on a daily basis, today I would rate mine at 11! But this stability and subjective balance has not always been easy. This balance is the result of successive realizations. And besides, nothing is definitively acquired; I am also aware that my deep nature is evolving. And that this daily appointment with myself to analyze the situation must be daily. It’s not easy. Especially since in this selfish endeavor, not everything depends on me.

Who is most at risk?

People who fall into bigorexia are generally not top-level athletes. They are people who realized that by running or cycling, they would lose weight or feel happier. They develop certain hormones: endorphins, dopamine, adrenaline. And they become addicted. Often, these types of runners don’t prepare for competitions. This is an aspect that goes hand in hand with mass participation. Running and, more recently, triathlon are becoming increasingly popular, bringing hordes of amateur athletes who train very intensively, without the advice of health and sports professionals. The long-term damage of this practice will inevitably be associated with bigorexia. And why running, cycling, and triathlon? Running in particular because it’s practical; you can run at any time, anywhere, with no time constraints…

In conclusion, stay in control

You have several alarms at your disposal: if your performance decreases, if your timed references drop, if the desire fades and constraint appears more and more regularly and for longer and longer durations: be careful! It’s like everything else. The poison is in the excess. Everything is always a question of balance. Learn to listen to yourself! What does excess mean? It’s so subjective. Do what you love in a dosage that is yours. Be free in your choices. Regret nothing. But please, just enjoy yourself.

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