Sports medicine specialist Dr. Jeff Tanji of the UC Davis Health System says first thing’s first – most people’s bodies aren’t like Olympians.

“Physiologically they are very, very different than the average person.”

Take Michael Phelps for example. Tanji says his body can sustain high intensity exercise for much longer than the average athlete. But Tanji warns often people forget they’re bodies are different and try to do too much.

“We’re much more interested in having people sustain a program over a long period of time rather than going in and working really hard with high intensity and then you get hurt and you have to stop.”

Tanji says the Olympics are inspiring a lot of people to get fit, even middle-aged moms who thought they couldn’t be active anymore or senior citizens. He recommends easing into swimming, biking, walking or running and keeping it up.