But at the core of all these activities there lays some undisturbed rules of physical training to be healthy and injury free too. The rule is called as “Optimization”. Optimization does not mean moderation. It means having a few essential training elements in the right combination. The elements which need to be mixed in any fitness regime are
1) Flexibility training .
2) Strength training
3) Muscular endurance training & Cardiac endurance training
Our activities of daily living has a mixed demand of all these three elements namely strength, endurance and flexibility on our body. Carrying a shopping bag back home demands our strength. Climbing up the temple steps require our muscular as well as cardiac endurance. Bending forward to tie our shoe lace requires our flexibility of spine. When these demands are placed on ones own self and if he lacks strength, flexibility and endurance then he is more likely to end up in muscular strains or ligament sprains etc. Understanding that these are the physical challenges one face daily, one need to accordingly train himself not only to be capable of doing everything efficiently in his given environment but also to void injuries to the maximum possibility.
To understand what type of a physical training program one needs to undergo through, he or she needs to understand two things very well.
1) What is the current usage of ones own body?
2) What is the level of efficiency he/she is looking forward to gain?
Understanding ones own available physical efficiency makes it very easy for him to identify his efficiency and weakness also provides as a valuable tool to an Physiotherapist to design an exercise program which would best suit to the client’s available fitness level from which he could gradually improvise himself safe and steady forward .Unfortunately many people do not pay attention to their own physical efficiency and end up not knowing what to expect out of an exercise program or have wrong or impractical expectations out of the training program .Hence they end up either with training related injuries or get frustrated with exercises since they don’t see their expected results and stop exercising for a lifetime.
On the other hand there are a lot of fitness enthusiasts who are in the steady raise these days who pick up fitness activities like Running, Cycling, Swimming etc on their own based on their personal interest and passion. It is actually a welcoming urban sign showing the awareness of the general public towards staying healthy. That’s good. But very often the focus per individual activity goes unilaterally high that these enthusiasts end up only running or only cycling or only swimming. This approach has a definite dead end called “INJURY”.
Activities like running works well on cardiac endurance, but one need to add elements like flexibility training and muscular strength training to it to make it wholesome. Cycling is an amazing way to improve muscular and cardiac endurance but unless coupled with adequate strength and flexibility training knee related injuries are inevitable. Any fitness activities when not combining the elements of strength, flexibility and endurance may invite a down fall with injuries.
Hence lets get started with this fitness key called “Optimization”.
