Perfect Practice Makes Perfect
The health department has given clear guidelines on what to do to manage your health during this COVID-19 lockdown. Details can be found here.
Doing a fitness program at home can have many advantages over going to a gym, including the primary benefit during these community restrictions of not having to hop in the car and travel – minimising your exposure to COVID-19. Home exercise allows you to stay healthy while on lockdown. This is increasingly important to counteract today’s increased computer time, virtual work environments, stress and restlessness.
However, without guidance, doing exercises in isolation can also come with its own set of risks and challenges.
Incorrect posture during workouts, inappropriate choice of weights or resistance band sizes, and inappropriate exercise intensity are major contributors to many of the “sports” injuries people incur during training at home.
Our clinicians are all qualified to assess your health issues, and are able to provide valuable advice to assist with your home training. These include tips to improve or modify your exercise program to be more optimally aligned with your body’s specific needs. Specificity during exercise helps you to continue to improve and stay well while training at home.
Just as exercise professionals, our clinicians can also guide you how to align your body to get maximum benefit from an exercise – including how to engage your core muscles to decrease the risk of lower back injuries. In addition, they can advise you on the pacing and repetitions that are the most beneficial to your body needs, no matter your fitness level.
If you are constrained to training at home by yourself, we recommend if possible that you bring a mirror into the training area and observe your own posture. This allows you to make corrections while you are training. Additionally, if you are isolated with family or a housemate, their observations may also be valuable; while they might not be professionally qualified, any observations of your training posture to compare to your Chiropractor’s advice can be helpful!
MOST IMPORTANTLY, if you find that you are experiencing pain during your workout routine or are having trouble doing your normal daily activities immediately following your workout, we recommend that you seek advice from us as soon as possible to avoid the risk of sustaining further injury.
Tracey Lademann
Principal Chiropractor