Exercise is the best thing that you can do for your health no matter how old you are, how fit you are or what your goals are. If you do not avoid some of the most important fitness faux pas, however, exercise can be dangerous and harmful to your health. If you engage in a workout program without enough planning or foresight, you can lead to frustration, injury, burnout and many other things that will prevent you from getting the most out of what fitness has to offer you. If you want to maximize the capabilities of your workout, you need to avoid these seven deadly fitness faux pas.
1 - You must never skip your warm up. If you do too much too quickly, you're going to get hurt. The purpose of the warm up is to get your muscles and joints prepared for the workout. Warm up before you stretch, before you run, before you do anything that is labor intensive, otherwise you are going to get hurt.
2 - You must never jump into a hot tub or sauna right after working out. This can be detrimental to your body if your temperature is already elevated, so calm down and cool down first or you could be putting yourself at serious risk of injury. You need to let your body dissipate some heat following a workout before you add more heat to the equation.
3 - You must never hold your breath while you are lifting weights or strength training. Holding your breath when you lift weights will increase your blood pressure, and this can cause hernia, stroke, heart attack, dizziness, nausea and light headedness. Why do it, then? Make sure that you are inhaling and exhaling with every lift. Breathe naturally for the best results.
4 - You must never begin an exercise program without first receiving a proper physical examination. This is the best way to make sure that you are not putting yourself at risk when you are working out. Get a complete and thorough checkup before you work out to make sure that your body is ready for the rigors of the workout.
5 - You must never exercise beyond your determined range for your heart rate. You don't have to push yourself to extreme limits to lose weight or get healthy. The best way to push yourself is just to fall in the right heart rate limit, not to exceed it.
6 - You are going to want to avoid using hand weights or ankle weights while doing aerobics or while walking. These actually increase the risk of injury during these activities without giving any real benefits, so why bother with them?
7 - You must absolutely listen to what your body is telling you when you work out. If your heart is beating abnormally, if you are experiencing dizziness, nausea, pain, fatigue or other issues, you need to listen to your body. You do not want to have a heart attack or become injured because you pushed yourself too hard, it simply makes no sense.
Photo Credits: Daquella manera
Originally posted 2009-08-11 05:45:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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2 comments ↓
While I’d agree with most of these, #5 is complete and utter BS. Who “determines” what your range is for your heart rate? Some fitness machine that says at 40, 80% of my maximum HR is 144? Except that I’ve been exercising for 3 years, and when I run, my average heart rate is around 165. That’s w/out gasping and dying, just a nice steady running pace.
Pre determined heart rates are garbage. The best way to judge your workouts is to use the Perceived Exertion Scale (http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/strengthening/a/030904.htm).
I have to wonder how many people actually follow #4. Most people (including me) just jump right into it. We often see this disclaimer on workout products, because the lawyers told them they needed to put that.
Don’t get me wrong, regular check-ups are important but I think that not a lot of people will follow this one.
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