2018

When you are an active participant in sporting events, it’s important to remember to keep your body in its best condition. If you want to keep playing hard on the courts and fields, you need to take account of how your body is performing before and after any practice. When you are involved in an actual event, you might be too concerned with the event itself to notice how your body is performing, so it’s important to realize that your body’s condition cannot be overlooked. Nobody wants you to win as much as your coach, and a good coach wants to see you take care of your body in order to perform in future events.

One of the most important things that you can do to keep your body moving in its best condition is to stretch before and after activity. It’s a good idea to do a warm up exercise before stretching in order to get the blood flowing throughout your muscles. If you jump into stretching too early, without doing a warm up, you might end up injuring part of your body by pulling a muscle. Muscles need special attention. Without stretching before and after an athletic activity, you are bound to injure on of your muscles. Be sure to let your coach know about any kind of muscle spasms that have developed.

Massage is another way to alleviate tension and avoid injury. Although massage is not something that you can do to the muscles of your entire body, you could work massage into your warm up. It’s possible to get the blood in your upper arms, neck, shoulders, and legs flowing by giving the muscles in those areas a gentle massage. If you need more of a release of tension after a workout, then you might want to seek the help of a professional massage therapist to help with your tense muscles.

If you aren’t careful to stretch and seek help with tense muscles, you might develop a serious injury. Not all serious injuries are life threatening. For instance, you could injure yourself in a way that prevents you from playing sports, but at the same time, you might not be suffering a fatal injury. Many injuries that occur during a sporting event are uncomfortable, and these injuries will often result in discomfort during regular activities, like walking or driving. You might suffer from a foot sports injury treatment Haymarket VA. Be sure to talk to a qualified physician if you are in any pain from an injury.

It’s important to seek professional help for medical questions. Even if you think you know the answer, or if you found an answer on a medical forum, you might still need to speak with an actual professional physician who treats patients on a regular basis. Speaking with an actual physician will give you peace of mind because you will know that you can trust the advice you’ve received. Be sure to follow the directions given by your medical professional.

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Whether you’re a professional fitness instructor or just a regular fitness enthusiast, a well-balanced fitness training routine should include the five elements of good health, Flexibility/stretching, strength training, core exercise, aerobic fitness and balance training.

Aerobic fitness

Aerobics or better known as endurance or cardio activity are the foundation of most fitness training regimens. Aerobic exercise causes faster and deeper breathing, giving more oxygen in your bloodstream going to your muscles and back to your lungs. The more aerobic exercise you do, the more efficient your lungs and heart transport oxygen all over the body. Because of good oxygen circulation, our body can efficiently complete physical tasks like walking or running.  Aerobic or cardio exercise includes any activity that increases your heart rate and uses large muscle groups. It includes: biking, swimming, jogging, running or even simple household chores like shoveling snow, raking the leaves in the backyard or cleaning your house.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, healthy adults should at least have 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise or activity per week and at least 75 minutes per week if you are doing vigorous aerobic activity. You have to spread out your aerobic activities during the course of the week, or you can do a short ten-minute activity per day. You can also try high-intensity training that involves a short burst of intense exercises with small periods of light activities. For example, you can do jogging for 1 minute, then switch to leisure walking for at least 2 minutes, then back to jogging, so on and so forth.

Strength training

Another critical component of fitness training programs is muscular fitness. It helps you increase your body’s bone and muscular strength. This training program can help you tone your body and lose weight. It can also give your body strength to do everyday activities. Make sure to do strength training to all primary muscle groups in your body at least thrice a week. You can use a different resistance machine like free weights to improve your strength, but it does not mean you need to go to the gym to do strength training. You can use homemade weights like a sack of sand, five-gallon container filled with water or a block of wood. You can also do push-ups, pull-ups, crunches or leg squats to improve your core strength.

Core exercises

Core muscles are muscles in your lower back, pelvis or abdomen that connects your lower and upper body movement and help protect the back of your body. A well-rounded fitness training regimen always includes core strength training. Core exercises train your core muscles to be more effective in protecting your spine and enable your lower and upper body muscle to perform better. You can do full body planks, sit-ups, bridges or ball exercises.

Balance exercises

Balance training, as the name suggests, can improve a person’s balance. This exercise is good for older people because balance tends to deteriorate when you get older, and it helps them improve their stability and avoid injuries. Balance exercise benefits both young and old people. It helps stabilize our core muscles.

(Visit https://www.mayoclinic.org for balance exercises you can do at home.)

Flexibility/Stretching

One of the most critical aspects of physical fitness regimen is flexibility and stretching. It is good to include this in your fitness program because stretching exercises can help increase your body’s flexibility and can make it easier for you to do everyday activities that will require flexibility. Stretching can also improve our joint’s range of motion and prevents a problem with our body’s posture. It can also help us release tension and stress. It is imperative to do stretching before doing any exercises to help your body warm up. If you want to stretch before a heavy workout, you can do light walking for 10 minutes, 2 minutes stretching, and you can do your regular exercise routine. It is advisable to do stretching before doing any exercise. You can do stretching at least three times a week to maintain flexibility. Activities like yoga or tai chi can help with your body’s flexibility.

Cover the bases

When you are creating your exercise regimen, your plan should include at least three of the said elements. Incorporate core exercise, aerobic fitness, balance training, and flexibility/stretching into your program. It is not necessary to do all five elements all at once. But doing at least three can help promote good health.

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