Getting in shape is a noble, but often abandoned, goal. Many people make new year’s resolutions to exercise more or start going to the gym only to drop out a month later.
This is the difficulty with exercise. It is hard work by its very nature, and this makes it difficult to motivate yourself to do it, especially considering the endorphin rush people associate with exercise doesn’t actually begin to happen until you’ve been exercising for a few months regularly.
There is another half of the argument, though, which says that people sometimes stop exercising because they have injured themselves, which is a relevant and engaging detail – so much so that we’ve dedicated this article to ways of preparing your body for your new workout regime, in order to ensure that your progress along the path to a healthier body is fraught only with mental obstacles, not physical damages. Straight Forward chiropractors Sydney can offer some good chiropractic checks, and getting assessed by a professional can help identify some problems before they arise.
Readying A Diet
One key factor that people don’t tend to associate with muscle growth or toning is diet. Many people think that their diet is a key factor mainly in weight loss, but seem to miss the idea of food intake being directly linked to muscle growth. As a result, their exercise is needlessly tiring, and much less effective than it could be.
By ensuring you have a steady supply of protein, carbohydrates and vitamins, you ensure your body has the fuel needed to convert that food into muscle mass, therefore bolstering your exercise efforts. Make sure your diet is consistent and steady, and you don’t overindulge in excess fats and sugars too often, as these things are definitively bad for you in high amounts.
Ease Yourself In
Jumping straight into the deep-end of exercise can be appealing to many people. However, being able to go from no exercise to exercise every day is rarely a successful tactic in getting fit, as it begins as a challenge and ends very, very quickly. Easing yourself into regular exercise is crucial to your success, as it allows your body to get used to regular physical strain, which means you can push yourself further physically without worrying about injury or over-exerting yourself.
Start with two or three days a week, with a day between each session for recovery. This way, by the time you are used to that and feel like doing more, your body has already developed more muscles to balance out the extra exercise.
Getting Assessed
Finally, getting yourself assessed by a professional, such as a chiropractor or, ideally, a physiotherapist/personal trainer with a background in anatomy studies, is essential in ensuring your risk of injury is as low as possible. With a professional assessing you, you can be sure that any problem areas, or subtly weak limbs that could cause problems later, are spotted before you launch into a marathon or ironman event. This can be a quick session in which your professional will ask you to perform a few key movement exercises, to assess your maneuverability, or as complex as a course of sessions to find where the weakness in a muscle group lies.
Exercise is a wonderful way to boost your physical health as well as your mental health, as exercise releases endorphins into your brain, making you feel good once you’ve completed a particularly strenuous set of exercises. This can help fight depression and anxiety, whilst simultaneously reducing your risk of heart disease and other high cholesterol- related problems.