13 Mar Don’t run your race too early!
That one kilogram that you’ve put on feels like five kilograms, and you’ve forgotten where you’ve put your joggers, as you haven’t used them in about three weeks! You’ve survived the festive break and you’re ready to hit the ground running!
This time of year proves to be an exciting, challenging and busy time for physiotherapists as the enthusiasm of our patients can often lead them to running their race too early! After having a few weeks off over the holiday period, the excitement of returning to training can be often accompanied with training errors, injury and putting exercise on the back burner until January comes around next year!
A new exercise program should be thought of like a marathon. You need to be in it for the long haul, and although we naturally want to see results FAST, a dramatic increase in training volume, intensity and frequency can lead to acute overuse injuries that can keep you sidelined for weeks. Making those results even harder to see over a shorter period of time.
For our athletes and patients, we have a few suggestions when it comes to restarting their exercise regime.
1. Start with lower volumes and intensities
When you start back in the gym or on the running track, don’t think you have to run as far or as fast as you did on the session before you took your break, you need to allow your body time to rebuild capacity! For example if you were lifting 5 sets per exercise in the gym before the break, start off with 2 to 3 sets with the aim of building up to 5 sets over three to four weeks. I’ll give you the tip, you’re going to be sore! So if you go straight into your training at higher volumes and intensities you’ll be too sore to build consistency and your sessions will start to fall off to the wayside.
2. Earn the right to try new exercises!
If you’ve decided to start group training sessions, that’s great! However, if you’re someone who hasn’t ran, jumped, skipped or hopped in a few years than your body isn’t going to be accustomed to the forces in which you’re going to be putting through your joints with these exercises! Also not to mention that these exercises are skills within themselves, which means they can be done well, but also very poorly! Listen to your body, if your sore with a specific exercise contact your trainer or physiotherapist immediately! There’s always a regression or progression to an exercise!
3. Individualised structured programs are the most effective!
There’s hundreds of fad programs out there made by influencers, that probably won’t cost you as much as an individualised program. However, it doesn’t take a genius to know that there’s no way they will be as effective as an individualised custom made program written by an exercise professional. If you’re looking to get back into training, then spending a little extra money at the start in making sure you’re on the right track, may save you money later on if you need to rehab the injuries you’ve sustained because of training errors!
If you’re interested in getting back into a consistent successful training program this New Year, we offer individualised and group strength based group classes as well as individualised online strength and conditioning programs. Call our friendly staff on 03 9370 0345 or click here to make an appointment and get started on your 2020 fitness journey!
