This is one of my favourite times of the year, when Christ­mas has passed and in the evenings around the tracks, across the play­ing fields and by the Sa­van­nah you see many per­sons, young and old ex­er­cis­ing and train­ing for many rea­sons.

While many peo­ple might be ex­er­cis­ing in prepa­ra­tion for Car­ni­val, to build their physique, de­vel­op sta­mi­na, en­durance and strength for the road, there are the few who are ex­er­cis­ing to im­prove their health. What­ev­er their rea­sons be, it makes me very hap­py to see many per­sons ex­er­cis­ing, ad­di­tion­al­ly it acts as en­cour­age­ment for oth­ers who want to ex­er­cise, there is a high en­er­gy and sense of pos­i­tiv­i­ty in the air and most peo­ple feel safe ex­er­cis­ing be­cause there is more com­pa­ny.

Ben­e­fits of Ex­er­cise

This change in ex­er­cise be­hav­iour, if main­tained through­out the year would of­fer great health ben­e­fits to in­di­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies, and even the coun­try on a whole. Be­cause many of the chron­ic dis­eases as­so­ci­at­ed with high eco­nom­ic costs can be pre­vent­ed or con­trolled with ex­er­cis­es and oth­er lifestyle changes, sav­ing fam­i­lies thou­sands of dol­lars and the gov­ern­ment mil­lions. How is this pos­si­ble? Well it is med­ical­ly proven that reg­u­lar ex­er­cise has the abil­i­ty to low­er the risk of the fol­low­ing ill­ness­es by up to: 35% coro­nary heart dis­ease and stroke, 50% type 2 di­a­betes, 50% colon can­cer, 20% breast can­cer, 30% ear­ly death, 83% os­teoarthri­tis, 68% hip frac­tures, 30% falls (amongst old­er adults), 30% de­pres­sion and 30% de­men­tia. Ex­er­cise and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty are like a mag­ic drug, that’s free! Oth­er well-known ben­e­fits of ex­er­cis­es are mak­ing you fit­ter, stronger, look "bet­ter", feel more en­er­gised, hap­pi­er, less stressed and sleep bet­ter. I am very sure; every­one would ap­pre­ci­ate all these ben­e­fits (and there are many more).

In­jury Risk, Pre­ven­tion and Ex­er­cise

While ex­er­cise is great, it still car­ries a risk for in­jury, how­ev­er the health risks as­so­ci­at­ed with not ex­er­cis­ing or be­ing phys­i­cal­ly in­ac­tive far out­weighs those risks of in­jury with ex­er­cis­ing. How­ev­er, there are a few very sim­ple pre­cau­tions that you can take to de­crease your risk of in­jury, so you can con­tin­ue to ex­er­cise and achieve those 2020 health and fit­ness goals.

Is Ex­er­cise Safe for me?

Ex­er­cise is ac­tu­al­ly safe for ma­jor­i­ty peo­ple, if you ex­er­cise reg­u­lar­ly and have no car­dio­vas­cu­lar, meta­bol­ic or re­nal dis­ease or signs/symp­toms to sug­gest that you do, then it is safe to con­tin­ue ex­er­cis­ing with­out con­sult­ing a doc­tor, but if you do but cur­rent­ly you are not show­ing symp­toms then con­tin­ue to ex­er­cise (once you have re­ceived med­ical clear­ance in the last 12 months). If your symp­toms start to man­i­fest then vis­it your doc­tor, if not con­tin­ue ex­er­cis­ing. Peo­ple who do not ex­er­cise reg­u­lar­ly and have no car­dio­vas­cu­lar, meta­bol­ic or re­nal dis­ease or signs/symp­toms to sug­gest that you do, then it is safe to start ex­er­cis­ing with­out con­sult­ing a doc­tor, be­gin at light in­ten­si­ties then progress grad­u­al­ly. If you do not ex­er­cise reg­u­lar­ly but have these dis­eases or symp­toms sug­ges­tive of them, then please get med­ical clear­ance from your doc­tor.

Treat Old and Cur­rent In­juries

Iron­i­cal­ly, a his­to­ry of pre­vi­ous in­juries this one of the great­est risk fac­tors for get­ting in­jured, es­pe­cial­ly if pre­vi­ous in­juries were not man­aged prop­er­ly or ad­dressed. If you have an old in­jury or a cur­rent one, be­fore you start to ag­gres­sive­ly ex­er­cise, it would be good if you con­sult a reg­is­tered phys­i­cal ther­a­pist, an or­thopaedic or sports doc­tor or a li­censed re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­fes­sion­al. Cor­rect­ing old or present in­juries will make you ex­er­cise bet­ter, more con­fi­dent­ly and move safe­ly. Phys­io­ther­a­py can help to re­ha­bil­i­tate in­juries, cor­rect bio­me­chan­ics and train you in ba­sic ex­er­cise move­ments then grad­u­ate you to a strength and con­di­tion­ing coach. Per­sis­tent aches, sore­ness and pain are usu­al­ly signs of in­jury.

Should I Train with Cer­ti­fied/Li­censed Pro­fes­sion­als?

Many per­sons can ex­er­cise safe­ly and in­de­pen­dent­ly, by walk­ing, jog­ging, cy­cling, swim­ming, danc­ing, skip­ping, etc. and reap many health ben­e­fits. While there are few who may not be cer­tain of how to ex­er­cise, some might need guid­ance or that ex­tra mo­ti­va­tion to ex­er­cise, main­tain the be­hav­iour and as­sist them in reach­ing their health and fit­ness goals. Many times, I have seen per­sons who are in­jured be­cause they were be­ing trained by per­sons who are not li­censed/cer­ti­fied (up to date) fit­ness train­ers or strength and con­di­tion­ing coach­es. Trained pro­fes­sion­als are ca­pa­ble of do­ing pre-train­ing as­sess­ments, in­di­vid­u­al­ized train­ing pro­grammes, teach cor­rect ex­er­cis­es and me­chan­ics and prop­er­ly man­age load pro­gres­sion, de­fi­cien­cy in these ar­eas nor­mal­ly re­sults in per­sons be­com­ing in­jured.

Shoes Se­lec­tion

While there might not be an ide­al shoe, it is nor­mal­ly ad­vice that you try shoes that are de­signed for ex­er­cis­ing. Do not ex­er­cise in slip­pers, flip flops, old worn out sneak­ers, dress shoes or de­sign­er sneak­ers, these would not sup­port the me­chan­ics of run­ning and oth­er ex­er­cise move­ments, which will re­sult even­tu­al­ly in foot aches and pain, or knee in­juries. Bare­foot or min­i­mal­ist run­ning which has grown in pop­u­lar­i­ty over the last decade, while they can help in the man­age­ment of some in­juries, there is no ev­i­dence cur­rent­ly to sup­port it as an in­jury pre­ven­tion strat­e­gy.

Oth­er Fac­tors to Con­sid­er

Try Dif­fer­ent Ex­er­cis­es - Adding va­ri­ety to your ex­er­cise regime, makes it more en­joy­able and al­so helps to pre­vent in­juries. Do­ing the same ac­tiv­i­ty over and over again, will lead to bore­dom, de­creased

mo­ti­va­tion and in­creased like­li­hood of overuse in­juries. For ex­am­ple, if you are a run­ner, in­stead of run­ning every­day has days in the week that you do strength train­ing, or do some oth­er aer­o­bic ex­er­cis­es, play mul­ti­ple sports, etc. Just re­mem­ber, va­ri­ety is the spice of life. Build Mileage Grad­u­al­ly - many peo­ple may be do­ing a lot of run­ning be­cause this is a pop­u­lar and easy form of ex­er­cise. How­ev­er, per­sons are cur­rent­ly now try­ing to push them­selves, es­pe­cial­ly those who want to catch the car­ni­val train, in­creas­ing their run­ning mileage dras­ti­cal­ly, which can lead to a lot of aches, pains and per­sis­tent sore­ness or overuse in­juries. Grad­u­al­ly progress your mileage, al­low­ing your

body time to adapt and re­cov­er.

Strength­en Hip and Core Mus­cles - grad­u­al­ly progress these ex­er­cis­es, you can­not go wrong, get­ting strong. Stronger per­sons tend to be more re­silient and have less in­juries.

Warm Up and Stretch­ing - sta­t­ic stretch­ing be­fore ex­er­cise or any event does not re­duce the chances of be­ing in­jured. How­ev­er, dy­nam­ic stretch­es and ac­tiv­i­ties which are sim­i­lar to those you will be do­ing in the ses­sion, when per­formed at low­er in­ten­si­ties dur­ing warm up, pre­pares the body for the work ahead and re­duces the risk of in­jury.

Rest, Re­cov­ery and Good Nu­tri­tion - Last but in no way least, these are very im­por­tant, they will help the body to adapt to ex­er­cise re­lat­ed bod­i­ly changes and en­sure you have enough en­er­gy to keep on go­ing. Wish­ing All a healthy and safe 2020! May your fit­ness/health goals be­come a re­al­i­ty!

#TTmoves

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Adri­an Palmer, PT, BScPT, PAPHS

Reg­is­tered Phys­i­cal Ther­a­pist (RPT)

AC­SM/NPAS Phys­i­cal Ac­tiv­i­ty in Pub­lic Health Spe­cial­ist

adri­an.palmer1@gmail.com

Arukah.physio.plus@gmail.com

Tel/What­sApp: 868-314-3639