Exercising is great. It’s good for your mood, your heart, it keeps the stress low, it helps regulate your sleep, and much more. The list of benefits goes on and on. There’s no getting around it: humans weren’t designed to be sedentary. Our bodies waste away if we allow them to.
That said, working out can also injury you. And if you don’t take the proper care, repetitive lesions can become permanent damage, or require surgery to fix. Injuries not only cost you time and potentially money, but they force you to stop working out while you recover, allowing your gains to waste away. To avoid all that, here’s what you can do to have a safer workout.
1 – Warm-up
Give your body time to adjust before you jump into a heavy workout. Our bodies are designed for movement, but they’re also designed to conserve energy. Meaning that if you’ve been doing nothing all day, your systems will be in rest mode, like a TV on standby. Your joints will likely be all stiff from all the time you spent not moving, too.
A good warm-up combined with stretches will help get you ready to exercise. Stretching will also increase the flexibility of your joints, which are vital for absorbing impact to the body. More flexible joints mean more impact absorption, leading to fewer injuries.
2 – Cool-down
A good cool-down routine can also promote health and prevent injury. Don’t just go from 100 to 0; if you lay down with your heart still hammering in your chest, you’ll place unnecessary stress on your cardiovascular system. Instead, keep walking and moving your arms while you get your breathing under control.
3 – Change things up
Doing the same exercise over and over again for hours and weeks isn’t good for you. Each exercise causes stress to different parts of your body, and always doing the same exercise will ensure that you are always damaging the same part. Over time, repetitive stress will lead to lesions, or even tears, which may never heal up completely. That’s why following a diversified workout routine is so important. Try using different equipment, different exercises, and follow your instructor’s guidelines. He’s giving you precise instructions for a reason.
4 – Watch your form
Bad form is one of the easiest ways to get yourself injured, especially if you are a beginner. There is a proper way to lift weights, do push-ups, and even run. Do it wrong, and you risk injuring yourself by applying unnecessary pressure on the wrong muscle groups and joints.
No one expects you to be perfect on your first time, but you should make sure you have professionals around when trying new things so they can correct any mistakes you are making. If that’s not possible, then at least watch videos online, so you’ll know how more experienced people are doing it.
5 – Take a day off
At least once a week, you should have a recovery day when you either rest or do active recovery by walking or biking around. Rest and recovery help prevent injuries. You can further aid your recovery by using natural remedies that help with stress and muscle pain, such as chamomile tea and extracts, lavender bath bombs, and the products sold by Cibdol.