At the start of the new year, many of us will be thinking about what we want to achieve, and how we want to grow as people in 2020. These resolutions often take the form of diet and exercise changes, and work towards our “dream body”. At SPEAR Physiotherapy, we tend to see these manifest as stress/overuse injuries come February and March. In addition to these physical injuries, people can find their motivation for these resolutions winding down sooner than they have achieved their goals – either due to these injuries, or due to a lack of passion for the plan they are on.
As physiotherapists, we would recommend those beginning their venture into health and fitness, to take a trial period for the fitness and exercise options available to you before you decide on one.
Try yoga, try gym strength and conditioning, try cycling, try running, try swimming, come in and trial one of our physio-led Pilates classes. Don’t think that you must go out and run 3 miles every day in order to tone up!
There are many different ways to skin a cat, and variety is typically the best way forward – it helps keep things interesting to prevent the waning of motivation, as well as that, variety helps keep any one body area from being overloaded and then injured.
By all means, when you have found something which works for you, and which you have a passion for, focus more of your time on that but until that time, keep it varied as able.
For those of you who have a background in fitness and exercise, but who have perhaps fallen out of love with it, we recommend taking a very gradual approach to re-entering your fitness routine. To begin with, have more rest/mobility days than training days, and slowly invert that as your fitness increases.
It may be a hard pill to swallow, but realising your capacity when returning may not be what it was when you left, and being objective with yourself will help you manage your expectations and be kind to yourself when getting back into it, and not push yourself too hard out of frustration.
New Years resolutions are intended as changes to you as a person, to be brought in with the new year. To help you to maintain these changes, and have them be part of who you bring into 2020 (and indeed 2021 and beyond) be objective, be kind, make changes you will be able to maintain without burning out.
Any questions? Get in touch! #teamSPEAR