Exercise is one of the most important things you can do to maintain and improve your overall health and sense of wellbeing. Home exercise programs and aerobic exercise such as running have gained popularity during these unprecedented times of COVID-19 lockdown in New Zealand. It is great to see so many people out walking, running, and doing home exercises but do you know how to keep yourselves safe and injury free? I have five quick tips for you:

 

1.     Do not hit the walls! Clear adequate space for what you are planning to do.

Make sure your environment is clear of any obstructions and have enough room for the activity of choice. Ensure proper footwear. For most workout programs, slippers, sandals and socks with no grip may not be advised.

2. Do not jump the gun and progress quickly.

Gradual increase the amount of time and intensity of your exercises.

If you are a novice lifter or returning to weight training – start with body weight exercises or use light weights and slowly increase your weights as you get stronger. For example: if you are doing a press up and can’t do a full press up from the floor, you could start from the wall or hands at an incline off your stairs or the edge of a sturdy couch or bench.

For aerobic training – start at moderate intensity for 15-20minutes and progress to higher intensities for longer time once you get fit. You can easily measure your intensities by using the Borg Talk Test (from a scale of 0: normal breathing – 10 very very heavy breathing) which measures your ability to talk while you are exercising. Imagine you were chatting to someone in your bubble while you are running or undertaking a virtual Les Mills or a Boxing class, begin with a level of 5 or 6 so you are still able to converse with some difficulty. As you get fitness improves with time you can increase your intensity to 7-8 which is still being able to converse with moderate difficulty.

 

3. Warm up before and cool down after each session

With any form of physical activity, an adequate warm up and cool down routine should be adopted to avoid the risk of injury. The importance of warming up is used to prime the body by improve muscular blood circulation and nerve-muscle activation used to the exercise.

Do 10-15minutes of dynamic (movement) based warm up exercises starting at low and progressing to moderate intensity towards the end of the routine. You should feel your heart rate raise and start to sweat. Remember you are priming your body to do the activity you have planned to do. Therefore, if you are planning to work your legs – warming up the shoulder may not be required. It is also important to that you go through the full range of motion as it allows your muscles to be more pliable to support your activity of choice and avoiding injury.

After your workout, do at least 10minutes cool down involving low intensity movements and static stretching.

Low intensity movements such as jogging from running to walking safely reduces your heart rate which has been busy pumping blood around your body. This allows the body to steadily normalise, safely resume to normal resting levels and avoid blood pooling in the lower body. Static stretching helps prevent muscle soreness and restore muscle length after your workout. Muscles shorten to meet the demands of your training. Lack of stretching for prolonged periods will lead to hypertonic muscles, lack of joint range of motion, flexibility, performance and ultimately risk of injury. Tight muscles are usually less efficient while performing an activity, meaning less power and force generation.

Research has shown 30secholds holds at the end of a stretch is recommended to improve muscular flexibility (Ayala et al 2010).

 

4. Technique is key!

Back to basics: quality over quantity.

Proper exercise technique and posture is the cornerstone for achieving maximal performance. If you find an exercise that you have not done before, take the time read and learn the correct movements and muscles the exercise is targeting before you dive into it. Alternatively, ask your physiotherapist or trainer to help you out.

Poor posture can add strain to joints, muscles, and local soft tissue structures such as ligaments, reduce muscle function and flexibility. Hence correcting malalignment or poor posture during exercise will not only reduce your risk to an injury but improve your muscle efficiency and performance.

Quality of movement is important. In a controlled manner without having to give up your exercise technique, you can do as many repetitions of the exercise as you can however, if you do say 12 reps and find that you cannot maintain adequate alignment, have a rest and come back to it instead of pushing through.

Do as much as you can handle, as a novice lifter or you are returning to training, don’t completely smash yourself doing 100 lunges.

Quality over quantity is the way to go. If you have seen an exercise online and think that it may be too farfetched, look it up and learn about the correct movements required. Alternatively find a slightly easier version until your body is ready for such complex movements required.

 Proper exercise technique and posture is the cornerstone for achieving maximal muscular recruitment and reduce the risk of injury. Understand the movements involved in an exercise and the muscles required to perform the exercise is key.

Do not get distracted, dedicate some time to your health. Put your phone away of focus on the exercise instead of doing a spinal twist while watching television as things can go wrond quickly.

 

5. What “good” vs “bad” pain. Understand your Pain?

Pain is the body’s protective mechanism and understanding its cause, delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) or an injury, is important.  

In DOMs, eccentric loading due to the venture of new exercises, results in microscopic tearing to the contractile elements of the muscle (Garrett, 2016). These Random disruptions often cause generalised pain in the group of muscle you have worked, which is often reversible. Pain tends to peak between 24 /to 48hours after exercise. Other symptoms may include weakness and loss of movement which can last for over a week (Garrett, 2016). 

In comparison to a muscle strain or tear, pain is often localised and brought on with activity. A muscle strain injury is characterised by disruption of the muscle - tendon units (Garrett, 2016).. Pain intensity varies depending on the area and  grade of muscle tear.  Poor rest and delay of rehabilitation will likely alter your movement patterns leading to compensatory pain and possible secondary injury. 

Reference:

Garrett, W. E. (1996). Muscle Strain Injuries. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 24(6_suppl), S2–S8. https://doi.org/10.1177/036354659602406S02