New Year, New You? Starting Exercise Safely
The New Year always brings with it a raft of resolutions and plans to live healthier and happier lives. Often some of these may revolve around exercising more or being more consistent in exercising. We love seeing people active in the community, and want to help people stay active, so we have compiled our 3 top tips on how to start exercising and avoid injury.
1- Start Slow
Our bodies are use it or lose it machines and because of this, especially if you haven’t exercised for more than 3 months or you have never exercised, it is important that you start slow. This allows the joints, muscles, connective tissue and bones time to get used to the load. Think of it like the “run in” period of a car. If you increase your workload by too much too soon it places you at a significantly higher risk of injury. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that you only increase exercise by 10-20% of what you have been doing over the past 4 weeks. I.E if you have been able to do 10 squats in a row, next week aim for 11-12, or if you have been able to walk for 10 minutes continuously aim to increase that to 11-12. Then gradually increase over time until you hit your goal.
2- Listen to your body
Your body will tell you when you have trained too hard or when you need to recover. This is important because the body gets stronger when it recovers and if you don’t allow your body enough time to recover then it won’t get as strong as possible. Practically, this may look like having an extra rest day when you are feeling fatigued or perhaps substituting an easy exercise session instead of a hard one if you don’t think you can cope with the hard session. As well as this, using foam rollers, self massage balls or stretching can help to keep your body in tip-top shape when you feel like you have tight muscles or stiffness.
3- Seek help early
Most issues are best managed in the early stages to reduce time off and make sure there are fewer barriers in your way to being healthy. Better than that is preventative medicine. This may involve making a plan with your doctor, personal trainer or exercise physiologist to make sure you avoid injury, or talking to a Physiotherapist about previous injuries or current injuries and modifications that need to be made. The most important aspect is that if you are unsure seek the opinion of qualified health professional to get an experts guidance on the best way forwards.