With the start of another year many of you may have made the New Year’s resolution of getting moving and exercising more.
If you have that’s fantastic!
That’s the first step.
The second is to know how to go about it safely and without getting injured.
That’s where we come in.
In this article I’m going to be talking about load management. This is a term used to describe how much, what type of exercise you do and how to structure it. We all know the importance of exercise and the benefits it has.
The first thing you need to consider is choosing an exercise that you like. There is good current evidence to indicate that patient adherence to exercise is influenced by whether or not they like the form of exercise they are engaging in.
The second thing to consider is how often and how much to exercise to perform.
The current exercise guidelines suggest we should aim to perform exercise on most of, if not all days of the week.
The intensity of exercise should also be factored in. This can be of moderate intensity for 2.5-5 hours per week. This includes brisk walking, golf, mowing the lawn or swimming (health.gov.au).
Alternatively, the recommendations suggest to perform 1.25 – 2.5 hours of vigorous exercise per week. This could include jogging, aerobics, fast cycling, soccer or netball.
While exercise should be enjoyable it is also vital to perform strength based exercises on at least 2 days of the week you exercise. From a physiotherapy perspective, both upper and lower body exercises should be performed on non- consecutive days.
These could include but not limited to:
- Push ups
- Pull ups
- Body weight squats
- Body weight lunges
While these are great parameters for exercise it is important to remember that they are guidelines. If you experience pain whilst you are exercising you should first remove yourself from the exercise you are doing or substitute it. For example, if you are jogging and experience a gradual onset of knee pain, stop and walk for the remainder of the session.
It is important to then follow up with a physiotherapist to determine the cause of the pain and an appropriate therapy intervention to recover. They can also help you with managing your load to exercise safely.
I have given you a lot of information but it is all
important to know and understand in order to commence and maintain an appropriate exercise program.
If you would like to know more about load management and structuring an exercise program, do not hesitate to make an appointment with one of our physiotherapists at Active Lifestyle Physiotherapy.
Happy exercising!