Happy New Year! We wish you and your families a safe and prosperous 2023!
As with every new year, the topic of resolutions is discussed. The hard part is sticking to it! There was even a Melbourne gym who did not allow new members to sign up in the first week of January as they see so many people not follow through.
So, how do we follow through with resolutions? The answer is - it depends! Everyone is different and everyone has different motivations, so it is difficult to give one answer (despite many people trying). One thing when it comes to exercising is not to go too hard too quickly. The new year and the excitment of being fit, losing weight or taking up a new hobbie means that it is human nature to go full throttle and overdo it. This often results in injuries due to overload.
What is load?
Load is the work placed on the muscles, bones, tendons and other structures which includes weight lifted, distance, duration, speed/intensity and frequency.
What is overload?
This is when too much load is placed on the structures of the body. This could be due to too much weight (lifting something too heavy), or more likely too much repetition (running too much, cycling too much etc).
Why is load management important?
Increasing training load by more than 10% per week increases injury risk by 21-49%. Each structure has a capacity to tolerate load – if that capacity is exceeded, injuries occur. If we don’t do anything – as in over the summer holidays or picking up a new year's resolution - our capacity reduces. If we start too quickly – then the body won’t be ready. We have to build this up again in an appropriate way. This was seen in elite sports post COVID and is the reason why sporting teams complete months of pre-season training to condition themselves rather than doing too much in one session.
If there are any questions, please call us on 95801985 or book online here.