04/02/2022
Hi everyone,
Please find my Health & Fitness article covering 'Exercise Safety'.
Enjoy the read .
EXERCISE SAFETY
‘NO PAIN, NO GAIN’
Those immortal words, taken from the days of barking (or barking mad) physical training instructors to screaming sirens in striped leotards, one concept has endured in the minds of the exercising public. People have allowed themselves to be bullied into painful exercise because they believe or are told: ‘‘it’s only doing you good if it hurts’’.
Many people feel sincerely thwarted if they attend an exercise class and do not suffer in some way, or if they do not feel stiff and sore on the day following a class. It is pain they want and if they do not get it, they will go elsewhere, leaving the thoughtful professional trainer in a considerable dilemma. Most trainers recognise that pain is a warning, a message that the body has had enough. Pain could indicate a rapid rise in lactate causing muscle burn, excessive strain on a previous injury, or perhaps actual tissue and cell damage. So on the one hand, the public demand pain during or after exercise as an indicator of the ‘good’ the exercise is doing them, while the experts tell us that pain is an indication of damage to our bodies, Is this pain really necessary in exercise? The following should be considered:
A group of volunteers underwent a ‘high resistance’ weight-training programme. Training 3 times a week, the increase in their strength was remarkable. What will seem more remarkable to people who train regularly with weights is that not one of the group experienced any pain either during or after each exercise session. One of the main reasons for this was because the intensity of the exercise was adjusted to suit each volunteer, and only increased when he or she could adequately manage his or her existing programme.
Essentially, the body sees any exercise as stress threatening its status quo. Fortunately our bodies can adapt to the stress of exercise, provided it is not too great, so that the threat no longer exists. Thus, in the case of those people training to lift weights greater than they normally handle in everyday life, their bodies adapt by becoming stronger.
If we work extremely hard, it is painful precisely because we are subjecting our bodies to stressful situations, which they are not yet ready to handle. Pain reminds us of this, and if we ignore it, injury or damage results.
Yet those people who participate in exercise, which suits their level of fitness (and which progressively increase the amount of work they are required to do), rarely experience the pain of exercise and enjoy all the benefits. For in this way they are giving themselves the chance, and the time, for their bodies to adapt gradually to the stress of exercise.
‘’NO PAIN, JUST GAIN ‘’, to rewrite a cliché.
In the midst of the current exercise craze, a most important factor is often forgotten – enjoyment.
To gain maximum benefit from exercise, we need to participate in our chosen activity on a regular basis, certainly 3 times per week. Exercise adherence is about motivation, incentives and enjoyment, i.e. actually looking forward to exercising and getting pleasure from it.
Chris Haney is your local Personal Trainer based in Hondon de los Frailes, if you need further information contact him on 679008021, or call into his gym in the village 'Esport i Salut' 14 Avenida Enrique Pastor, Hondon de los Frailes
