Ease into exercise slowly with caution after injury

Of the patients suffering from neck pain, back pain and other injuries, I would say that at least 50% of them ask, “what can I do for myself to make sure that this doesn’t happen again?” This question served as the inspiration for this article and I will address in this post.

To begin with, neck pain and back pain are great motivators.

When people are in pain they take a proactive approach to their health. People often inquire about what kind of stretches or exercises that they can start right away. Unfortunately, the best thing that you can do while your injury is new is to apply ice packs to the injured area and rest. I indicated that this is unfortunate because when injuries are new, motivation for proactive behavior such as exercising is high - later on, when the pain has decreased, so does the motivation.

Over my 15 plus years in practice I have seen a large percentage of enthusiastic patients ignore this advice and end up giving their conditions a major set back. The time to start exercising and stretching your back for most of us is when you are out of the acute stage of pain.

My biggest struggles in practice have been dealing with my patients exercise and diet habits. Exercise is one of the few things that a patient can do at home, outside of chiropractic care, to help prevent or diminish the chances of developing back pain in the future.

After an injury, you should approach exercise cautiously - almost to a point where the exercise that you are performing feels like it is doing nothing. If you can get through a few low intensity exercise sessions like this without aggravating your condition, you should slowly add resistance, repetitions or time to your workouts, allowing you to build confidence and strength at the same time.

You have to remember to incorporate a sensible approach to exercising after a back injury. Be sure to exercise and stretch under the advise of a health care professional. Strong and flexible muscles add strength and support to your spine and will provide much needed stability.

I have always tried to help the patients of my San Diego Chiropractic office with their neck pain and back by encouraging stretches and exercises. The combination of chiropractic care with stretches and exercise allows for quicker, more complete healing with decreased chances of pain in the future.

Dr. Steve Jones is a practicing chiropractor in San Diego California. He was licensed in 1991 and received his degree from Palmer College of Chiropractic - West. Dr. Jones has focused on the study and implimentation of ergonomics in the work place and holds a certification as a specialist in health ergonomics. Dr. Jones can be contacted through his websites at http://www.JonesPainRelief.com and http://www.ErgoNav.com

How often should you workout?

One of the age old questions, that has been asked throughout gyms for as long as anyone can remember has been, how many days a week should I workout? Too complicate things further comes the follow up question, how should I split my workouts? In either case, what essentially is coming into question is an individual’s training frequency. As it pertains to exercise, frequency is the rate at which workout sessions are occurring.

In my opinion this is the most overrated and over exaggerated fundamental principle of exercise. By that I mean this is the variable that people most heavily focus their attention on. It’s amazing how many individuals are caught up in having to be at the gym on a daily basis. As if missing a workout or even two or three is going to result in losing everything they have gained. This mind set often has negative consequences and can severely hinder your development. There are of course those at the other end of the spectrum who do not exercise nearly enough which as we know also has negative consequences. However much of our discussion here will focus on those individuals we first mentioned–the exercise addicts.

The reason why we go to the gym is to help us get in shape and look better, right? Wrong! The real reason for going to the gym or, working out in general, is to start a chain of events that will eventually result in us improving our level of health and fitness as well as looking better. Take a moment to read that statement again or as many times as is needed for it to completely sink in. The reason why it is so important to see exercise this way is because many people have a distorted view of exercise and how it works to make us more fit.

Many trainees believe that if they simply show up at the gym and perform the workouts, they will accomplish all they’ve set out to achieve. More often than not any results that are achieved through this mechanism are usually very small and/or short lived and the individual never fully realizes his/her potential. Very often people fail to change the way their bodies look even though they frequent the gym 5, 6 sometimes 7 times a week! Despite not achieving the physical changes they desire or further improving their level of fitness they not only continue to train frequently but may also increase the amount of exercise they perform in those workouts, ala the more is better mentality. Predictably this does not work either and their level of frustration grows with each passing week. But do not assume that based on these statements that anyone who has the same or similar profile to the one I described, can in no way see results. Some people achieve fitness success despite a ‘less than ideal’ training regimen. This however is usually because the person possesses superior genetic ability which will always be the ultimate determinant of one’s success.

For some trainees this amount of exercise may not be much of a detriment because their lack of activity outside of the gym (i.e. sedentary job) or because the demands of their daily workouts are so insignificant (in which case they will not see results no matter how many days a week they workout). But for the majority-the genetically average-an excessive amount of exercise can and will have negative consequences.

There exists a special relationship among all the components of exercise, but the success of your training program depends primarily on the relationship between 3 components in particular. They are intensity, volume, and of course frequency. When these three components are applied and balanced properly though training, performance and physical development will improve dramatically. When frequency is not properly balanced in conjunction with intensity and volume the demands of the training program will exceed what you can tolerate, resulting in a decrease in exercise performance, muscle loss, slowing of fat loss, decreased strength and endurance, and overall physical regression.

Ideally you should strive to exercise frequently enough to ensure that you are not overtraining (or undertraining), the consequences of which are mentioned above.

The overall goal of any exercise program should be to perform the least amount of exercise necessary to produce an optimum response.

Exercise should be intense, brief and infrequent. As stated in The Nautilus Book, by Ellington Darden, “You can perform brief and infrequent high intensity exercise or long and frequent low intensity workouts. But you cannot perform long and frequent exercise involving a high intensity of work. That will result only in total exhaustion.” (p. 76) As we’ve already covered, anything above what is necessary is superfluous and will ultimately result in diminishing returns. In layman’s terms this would translate to working out harder, working out longer, working out more, and having little or nothing to show for it. Training frequency should be reflective of what is an ideal period of rest following a bout of exercise, as per your individual needs.

For some this may be training 3 times a week, every other day, for others it may be training once every 46 days, for others it might mean keeping to their current schedule but lowering the overall demands. The options and combinations are infinite, but it is up to you to discover the appropriate training frequency based upon your training intensity and volume, goals, needs, rate of recovery, and preferences. Never forget, exercise is a means of starting a chain of events that will eventually result in you improving your health and fitness as well as looking better, so make smart choices about what you do and how often you do it.

Fat Loss: Time Efficient Workouts lead to lasting success

If you are fitness minded, you probably read the magazines or watch the latest infomercials and follow the trends. Well, some trends are good and others are just a waste of time and money. Yet maximum results with minimal time and expenditure is what most of us are looking for.

If you are new to weight training or fitness enhancement, getting a personal trainer is always a good place to start. They will show you the ropes, give you a program for success, and make sure you know how and why you are doing things.

But be cautious and do some research on the qualifications and philosophy of the trainer you may hire. While there are certainly great benefits to using personal trainers, having one is no guarantee for success. Some are not up on the latest studies and methods, relying on the same old stuff. But a good trainer will use circuit training and cross training for maximum results. Here’s how.

How to Maximize

Many trainers and fitness buffs will lift heavy weights then take long rests between sets. The theory is that the heavier the weight, the more muscle bulk will develop. And the longer the rest, the more repair has occurred to muscle tissue, which allows you to lift more in the next few sets. These extra reps and sets are thought to help burn more calories. Sounds good.

The problem is that this old-school method of weight training does not help cardiovascular health. There is very little benefit to lung and heart power. So now you will have to run the treadmill for those results. And this wastes time. And time is money, especially when paying a trainer!

Quality personal trainers will put into practice cutting edge methods of combining cardio, strength and flexibility training into single sessions while keeping the heart rate at optimal levels. I recommend wearing a heart rate monitor during the entire session, even when lifting weights. Why?

Because the best way to maximize time, energy and results is to work muscles, heart rate and lung capacity at the same time. In this way, you are not just resting for a few minutes to be able to do an additional rep of a weight set. On the contrary, it is your personal heart rate that dictates when to rest and when to begin again. And that time changes as your fitness level changes.

The goal of the workout is to give individual muscles a chance to rest while maintaining a consistently high heart rate. You will rest when your heart rate reaches 160 and then start up again when your heart rate drops to 130. (This varies per individual but is a good rule of thumb). This way your heart pumps more blood, you burn more calories through intensity, develop more endurance and leaner muscles.

A Streamlined Approach

When training a client, I will warm them up for 10 minutes on the elliptical cross trainer or stair master. To maximize time (to save them money and get the most out of each minute), I will review their personal nutritional journal with them during this period. We discuss diet, food combining, and ways to streamline their food habits for better results.

Next, I work them out for 45 minutes. To maximize results by controlling time, I pair up a machine and a manual exercise, like leg presses and dumbbell bicep curls. This method allows them to remain close to the machine and not “lose it” when the gym is crowded. I usually will have clients do three sets of each exercise and then move on to something else, like crunches and shoulder presses or leg curls and triceps extensions. In this way, one muscle rests while the other works. More importantly, the one thing that stays consistent during the exercise “switch” is the client’s heart rate!

The workout is 55 minutes long. With a heart rate elevated for that period of time through resistance training, you receive cardiovascular benefit, strength, muscular endurance, toning and sculpting. It’s also the biggest bang for your buck for anyone paying $65 or more per hour for a trainer.

The last 15 minutes of the session focuses on cooling down while stretching. Keeping muscles lean and limber is a huge part of health and wellness that is often neglected. It shouldn’t be.

Equipment Matters

Personal training often happens at the gym or in the home. And as a general rule, free weights offer better results than using weight machines. Really, the weight machines are for beginners or those too weak to use anything else. They are like training wheels and hold and guide proper position, without fear of the weights falling on you. But free weights not only increase the strength of the muscle being “worked,” they also train other muscles that are used to stabilize the weights while also increasing overall balance and whole-body coordination. Free weights maximize time, effort and results.

For home fitness, the now popular fitness balls and bands can be used. The balls are perfect for strengthening the core muscles, which include the abdominals, obliques, lower back and hips. The bands are good for chest, back and arms. While these strength bands are great for women, they don’t generally provide enough resistance for men. Free weights are the best options for men. For women, a small investment in Balls and Bands for home training can reap huge benefits.

Cross Training Is Key

Aside from circuit training, cross training is essential for overall fitness. I generally advise clients not to do the same type of exercise two days in a row, and to always mix things up.

I suggest things like weights and body-weight resistance training one day, biking or running the next day, and Bikram hot yoga or Pilates on another day. The idea is to keep the body guessing by putting the primary strain on different muscles in different ways each training day. These different strains place different emphasis and requirements on the heart, lungs and muscle fibers, as isometric yoga training is different than range of motion weight lifting or martial art training.

In the end, the objective of any fitness program is to maximize effort and results while keeping a lid on time and money. The way to do this is by using a heart rate monitor, not resting between sets, using circuit training and mixing things up with cross training. Good luck

Dennys Passeto has been a certified Personal Trainer and owner of Achieve Fitness since 1998. Achieve Fitness services clients in Maryland, DC and Virginia in their home, work, gym and outdoors. They are the only company who guarantee results. Visit them at http://www.achieve-fitness.com for a FREE personal training session.