Exercise During Covid
Coming from the Collingwood Osteopath Lachlan Cossens who needs to find some motivation for exercise..
Gone are the weekend warriors, hello the COVID warriors! With us in the heart of lockdown 2.0 and the COVID Kilos starting to really add up we have been seeing a lot of people change their exercise habits. There have been a couple of trends we have seen and we will give you some strategies to avoid injuring yourself.
With no gyms being open we have seen people adapt and work with what they have – either their runners, small choice of weights/resistance bands or bodyweight exercises. With this we have seen a trend of people doing a lot of ‘knee heavy’ exercises such as squats, lunges or taking up running. Whilst there is nothing wrong with any of these exercises when they are all being done in combination without building into it, you can leave yourself open to hurting yourself. Here are some tips to avoid that:
Plan your exercise
By creating a schedule and writing it down you’ll be more accountable for what you’re doing. It’s also a good way to block your training schedules so that you’re not doing too much of the same exercises or too much too quickly which leads into my next point.
2. Build into your exercise.
Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was your fitness base. It’s best off starting smaller and progressively building into it over a few weeks. Progressively increasing your workload by 5-10% each week is a good place to start and will allow your body to adapt to the exercise.
3. Being sore after exercising
Ah yes the old DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) is real. If you haven’t done a particular exercise in a long time or you’ve increased the intensity of it it’s normal to be sore through the muscles that you’ve just used. You won’t generally notice it until the day after exercising and it can last up to 3 days. It’s nothing to worry about, just something that comes along with exercising.
4. Warm up/Cool Down
This is actually quite important. Performing a warm up puts your body in the best shape to then complete your exercise to the best of your ability. The warm up should be a dynamic, movement based routine which activates the muscles you are about to use. The cool down is when you start doing the static stretches where you hold the stretch for a period of time.
5. Running specific
If you’re taking up running for the first time there are a few things you can manage to make it easier on your body. Incorporate the above points into you program along with trying to run on softer surfaces like gravel (think the tan) or grass. We look at replacing shoes roughly every 500km so if you have older shoes it may be worth investing in some new ones.
These points are a good place for you to start as you look to increase your exercise. If you have any more questions or are looking for someone to help map out a plan for you feel free to come in so we can get the most out of your increased motivation!
