Important Advice Before You Start Exercising
Let’s get something straight first.
I’m not a Personal trainer, or an exercise physiologist, or a physiotherapist or a triathlete or anything like that.
Nope.
I’m just a SLM therapist which stands for Steve Lockhart’s Myotherapy.
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One thing I do know is that our bodies are a magnificent machine that can do amazing things like heal itself and compensate for muscular imbalances. It’s really amazing how much our body can take before it starts to give off signs (pain) that it needs help.
The other thing I have learnt about bodies over the past 12 years of working as a SLM Therapist is that as remarkable as our bodies are, they don’t tend to like being pushed from one extreme to the other.
I see this so often.
A new client will come in who hasn’t exercised for a few years and they get this bright idea to do a boot camp or a 12 week challenge or go run a marathon for some ungodly reason (sorry, that’s just my opinion. I often tell clients if you see me running you should probably start running too)
Well, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know how that’s going to work out, especially if they are over 40. And surprisingly a lot of these people are over 40 and should know better:)
For example, I had a client come in last week who i haven’t see for a few years. She had become busy with life- you know, kids, work, husband, mortgage.
So, at 45 y/o she decides that she would like to start looking after herself again and to get fit. Guess what she decided to do? Yep, 12 week challenge. Not a gentle, ease back into exercise challenge where you start off slow and easy and build up. Oh no. This was a full on cardio, weights, push yourself to the limits each session tpye of challenge.
And guess what?
She had done something to her shoulder to the point where she was having trouble raising it above her head or lifting anything of reasonable weight.
This was about week 3 or 4 into the challenge and she wasn’t able to finish because of the pain and restriction it was causing her.
So, lets recap here.
45 y/o woman
Hasn’t exercised in at least 5+ years
Joins a 12 week challenge
Pushes herself with cardio and weights
Hurts shoulder and can’t continue
Looses out on the money she has paid
Is in pain and probably won’t exercise now for another few months until she can get her shoulder fixed- that’s if there’s no permanent damage done.
So, what am I trying to say?
START OFF SLOW AND EASY!!
There’s no rush
You will be much better off by easing yourself into exercise again then jumping straight in and causing some injury.
Ok, so it may take a bit longer and you may feel impatient and think that you’re not achieving anything by starting slow, but believe me, it will be so much cheaper in the long run because you won’t have paid out money on a program that you may not be able to complete and you also won’t have to pay money to then see chiro, physio, SLM therapists (like me) to fix your pain:)
