Working Out Your Problems

Hello again, friends! 

As many of you already know, exercise is one of the best, most rewarding ways you can treat your body, be it a little yoga session at the end of a long day, or an intense workout right after breakfast. Personally, I’ve always enjoyed an intense cardio/strength session four times a week, mixed in with some karate and calisthenics three times a week. To say we all love our exercise would be understating the idea by a ton. 

However, in order to keep our love alive, we need to keep ourselves in working order, a state also known as “not injured.” Because we’re moving our bodies so much, we’re more at risk of tearing muscles, breaking bones, bruising, name it, it’s very likely to happen. However, if you follow these tips, you’ll be much less likely to injure yourself, while still getting  a good workout. \

First off, and this is something I stress in nearly everything in life, find a balance. If you’re weightlifting, find a weight that’s challenging, yet not so heavy you workout while lifting it. If you’re running, find a pace that’s challenging, yet not so challenging that you have to stop every five minutes just to breathe. If you’re doing yoga, find a pose that pushes you while still making sure that you do the pose correctly. If you do a weight that’s too challenging, run at a pace that is too fast, do a pose incorrectly, you can tear your muscles, irreparably if you continue to do the exercise at that particular pace, weight, pose. Torn ligaments will usually mean reduced-to-no exercise for the next day or two—depending on how bad the tear is—and sitting out with an injury is no fun!  

A good way to prevent this is to work up to the levels. If you’re weightlifting, do the weights at the comfortable level for a month or so, and then graduate to the next one over (for example, from eight to ten pounds, instead of from eight to twenty). If you’re running, start off slow, and gradually increase your pace. If you’re doing yoga, work on different elements of the pose separately before putting them all together—for instance, doing the legs part of the Crow pose, and then working on the balance phase. 

Secondly, do not overtrain. Overtraining your muscles weakens them, and makes them more injury prone—if they’re too tired, they can’t repair themselves as well. I should know, I got tendonitis (a condition where an injured muscle can’t get any air, making it swell up) my sophomore year after overtraining it, doing burnout workout after burnout workout. If you have to exercise, try doing a lower impact, or less intense workout, the day after you kill it at the gym. If you don’t have to, take a rest day. Either way, your muscles will thank you. 

Lastly, make absolutely sure that you are doing the exercise correctly—that you’re not putting unnecessary strain on your muscles by putting them in a bad position. Doing the exercise correctly will not only make sure that you train the muscles you need to, but also that you will not twist your muscles to the point where they tear, and strain. If you don’t know how to do an exercise, ask around, or look it up—most exercises are common enough that you can easily find a guide on how to do it.  

Please, keep in mind that these reduce the risk of injury, not completely eliminate it. If you exercise, you will get hurt at some point, be it your first workout, or your fiftieth. These just help put off the risk for right now.  

With that, I wish all of you the best of luck on midterms—I know many of you have them right now, and I’ll say goodbye until the next article.  

Sincerely, 

Maya 

• working out