10 Guidelines for Creating your Exercise Program
Exercise can arguably make the largest impact on your health and longevity, as it helps improve cardiovascular health, muscle mass, and cognitive function. Hopefully you see exercise as something you GET to do rather than something you HAVE to do but if you don’t, accept exercise as a non-negotiable in life and figure out to do it daily. This could mean joining a gym, going to classes, playing sports, joining a team/group/club, setting up hike or walk dates with friends. Find a way to automate it and it will become a healthy habit you don’t even think about.
Use the below 10 Guidelines when evaluating Exercise in your Program.
1 . Move more all day, every day. Walk as much as possible. Use a standing desk. Take the stairs.
2. Exercise every day unless your body tells you otherwise. This includes sweating daily as it aids in detoxification [workout warm when possible].
3. Do strength training. Perform 3-5 sessions per week, focusing on compound exercises that target multiple muscle groups, such as squats, shoulder presses, and push-ups.
4. Do aerobic exercise. Engage in 4-5 sessions of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week, such as walking, jogging, or swimming.
5. Include stability training: in all your workouts, especially core stability exercises. Stability exercises are essential and are much harder to do correctly than they look.
6. Make sure you have movement variety. Engage in a variety of movements to prevent plateaus and reduce injury risk.
7. Integrate active recovery. Effective Recovery modalities: Foam Roll, Deep Tissue Massage, Percussive Therapy, Stretch Strap, Slant Board, Cold therapy, Breathwork.
8. Workout with proper form. Form trumps all. Better to do 5 reps with good form rather than 10 reps with bad form. If you are performing an exercise with poor form you won’t achieve results and you will be at higher risk ofd getting injured. Injuries prohibit consistency and consistency is one of the most important things about exercise.
Work Smart and Connected. Think about the muscles you are trying to strengthen during a specific exercise. Visualize them working. Focus on every rep. It’s OK to get uncomfortable and push through- discomfort is different from pain. This practice will help you get better, smarter, and learn the proprioceptive clues to become functionally strong as well as reduce your risk of injury.
10. Start Now. Think of exercise as a form of retirement savings. Just as you want to retire with enough money saved up to sustain you for the rest of your life, you want to reach older age with enough of a “reserve” of muscle to protect you from injury and allow you to continue to pursue the activities you enjoy. The larger reserve you build now, the better off you’ll be for the long haul.
