My friend is a 68 yr. old woman who works out a lot! ...3 hr. on sun. with sweating the whole time, and 3 days a wk. at the gym...she does not follow the zone.....her acu. said she is wearing her body out....her white blood cells are low.
Any advise for her? She's been doing this for years.

Unfortunately I bet she would probably not listen at all, if she has been doing this for years. You could tell her stuff about how the "overwork" is causing her body to show signs of inflammation, but I wonder if she would acknowledge that, or dismiss it, without knowing more about the Zone and silent inflammation.

There is a line I read from a famous Russian exercise scientist and coach... train as hard and as often as your can recover from.

There is another saying that some bodybuilder once wrote... there is no such thing as overtraining, only undereating.

There are many many factors that affect work capacity. Age is but one of them. Diet, program design, hormones, recovery, training history, etc. also matter. I have trained with powerlifters in their 60s and 70s who could put most people in their 20s and 30s to shame with their work capacity and ability to handle lengthy and intense exercise (plus they could probably out lift a lot of younger lifters by a long ways). By the same token, I have seen young healthy people for whom working anywhere near that would clearly be over training.

In the abstract, it is hard to say whether she is over training or not. Frankly, if she has been doing this for years, she has probably built up the work capacity to handle it. Perhaps her diet needs work. Perhaps she needs additional rest and recovery. Perhaps she needs a second opinion.

thank you, Matthew! sShe has been doing it for years, but ...yeah, she doesn't eat enough...she's not skinny, not overly muscled, she just looks solid. But she was telling me she has a "green" drink for brkfst......that's just some supps in a glass of water.......? I'll suggest the zone.

Janet, good advice!