Ready or not 2017 is here! With all the talk of new years resolutions I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss your fitness goals and exercise habits.
In the world of Physical Therapy, the use of therapeutic exercise is one of the main interventions that we use to help our patients restore their functions for daily living and to get them back doing the things they love. Once the patient has reached his or her set therapy goals and is discharged from therapy, it is a necessity for the patient to establish and continue with an independent exercise program to keep and build upon the gains that they have made through skilled therapy services. But unfortunately this continuation of independent exercise tends to fall by the wayside. The question is WHY? There are a number of reasons why this happens and I think it is case by case. But we all owe it to ourselves to incorporate regular cardiovascular and strength exercise into our daily or weekly schedules. Allow me to make an analogy. When you’re sick and require antibiotics; do you stop taking them when you feel better? The answer is no, you take them until they’ve run their course. Similar to this, why would you discontinue exercise when you start feeling better? Keep it going! Build upon it! Continue to challenge yourself! But unlike the antibiotics, exercise will never run its course. Like it or not we will always need it.
Ultimately I challenge you to build good exercise habits now or better yet yesterday! Getting my point yet? You need to get to where you plan your day around your workout rather than your workout around your day. Make it a priority. A priority that you have to do, that you want to do and that you feel like you need to do! Make exercise a habitual staple in your life so that when life tries to get in the way you’re unbreakable. As we all know building new habits takes time. Be patient and don’t get yourself overwhelmed. Take things one rep, one set, and one workout at a time. But it’s time to start building the better you!