Don’t stop now!
Simon stretching his hamstrings!
Many people start or re-start exercise from the first week of January. Howeve rseveral weeks later, many stop. It’s still dark in the evenings, the weather is cold and wet and they can’t see the fitness improvements they had hoped to achieve.
But don’t stop now! In a couple of weeks it’ll be March and the light evenings are just round the corner; the temperature will improve (although who knows if it will stop raining?) and things have been changing inside you without you knowing. From a fitness perspective you are about to start seeing the improvements you have been waiting for.
Whilst exercising you have been applying forces to all your musculoskeletal tissues (muscles; bones; ligaments; tendons; connective tissue and cartilage)and as they are all mechno-receptive, they have all been getting stronger.However this process takes a few weeks while these tissues are remodelled.
You’ve also been growing new blood vessels into your tissues to supply them with the oxygen and nutrients to generate force and metabolise at a higher rate. Like the changes to the tissues mentioned above, this process is like an engineering project. To produce complicated new micro body parts isn’t completed to an extent to see over all fitness improvements for a while.
So you have been getting stronger and your stamina will improve with all those new blood capillaries.
But that’s not all. Your neuro-muscular connections will also have been enhanced. As you practice what ever activity it is that you have been using to exercise, your neuronal transmission to your muscles and other musculoskeletal receptors will become more efficient.
This will not only enhance your quality of movement but also your sensation enabling you to be more agile.
And if you are trying to lose weight, don’t panic. When you start exercising it’snot unusual to put on a little weight as your musculoskeletal tissues change. However it’s lean tissue, the right kind of weight. But after a few weeks (as long as your calorie intake remains level) you will start to lose fat and thus weight.
So don’t give up and steel your brain as over the next three months you see the effects and throw off those exercise chains.
For more tips, info and links visit the Back in Action website and follow me onTwitter@SimonMPhysio
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!