Becoming more physically active doesn’t have to be specific
Being more physically active doesn’t just mean ‘running’ or ‘cycling’ or ‘going to a gym’. Exercise and physical activity can be as simple as taking your dog for a walk or playing padel with your friends, becoming more consistent with how much physical activity you do on a day-to-day basis is the key.
Incorporating exercise and physical activity into your routines with things that you find enjoyable and fun can sometimes be as east as playing putt-putt or 10-pin bowling with friends, going to a bird park or aquarium, playing with your kids or grandkids, all easy ways to participate in physical activities with others and a simple practical way to increase physical activity levels. Get involved!
Make physical activity part of your lifestyle
Physical activity and exercise can be found in everyday life, parking the car slightly further away from the store, taking the stairs instead of the lift, taking two stairs at a time, all simple things we can do to increase our daily calorie use and incorporate more physical activity.
Incorporate healthy weekly habits. Something as easy as walking 1 lap around the block with your partner or kids, spending 15 minutes every day just doing a quick clean-up and tidy around the house.
Schedule weekly activities
Scheduling weekly activities/group activities is a great way to incorporate higher levels of physical activity throughout your week, for example:
- Playing padel with the girls every Tuesday at 6PM
- Walking in the park every Saturday morning with your partner or friends
- Taking the dog for a walk every Monday and Thursday
- Start weekly dance classes at your gym
- Join weekly community programmes like parkruns (many people just walk them!), parkrun or river clean ups.
Group physical activities have been shown to be great for mental health as well as contribute to increased physical performance. Doing what you find fun will ensure you do it more consistently, so if you enjoy hiking, go hiking more! If you enjoy playing padel tennis, play with friends once or twice a week, having fun is important, if you find it boring, you’re less likely to continue. Keep trying to find something you really enjoy and stick at it!
Common household activities to increase physical activity
Do more housework! This can include maintaining your garden, hanging and folding the laundry, even learning how to do your own handiwork and arts and crafts projects around the house, can be a great way to get more physically active, painting that wall a different colour or following a D.I.Y project build that you saw online for example.
Consider a standing desk
Considering a standing desk or a standing desk station can be a fantastic way to introduce physical activity to your work day. Standing work stations have been shown to be a great way of improving muscular strength of your pelvic stabilisers, as well as being beneficial for your posture.
Consulting a physical therapist regarding your appropriate sitting vs. standing time is important, but roughly one can follow sitting for 30 minutes, standing for 10 minutes to get started, timeframes can be increased as your body adapts to standing, and sitting posture remains just as important! Consider sitting on an exercise ball.
Setting realistic goals and being patient
Setting some type of goal or mark to hit can be an easy way to stay consistent with what you are working towards. Getting more steps in throughout your day will help you burn more calories and therefore help with weight reduction, so set yourself a step count target for the day or week, set a target on how many flights of stairs you want to do in a day for example.
These type of smaller goals and targets are realistic and achievable and can be easily incorporated into something like our 12-week programme or any other type of exercise programme. Remember not to set the bar too high from the start, if you set a goal that’s unrealistic, it could demotivate you, be patient and set goals that are realistic to you!
Progression and overloading are important parts of progress
Once you have started training and are you’re feeling good, maybe feeling a bit stronger and fitter, it’s important to progress what you are doing to challenge yourself more, don’t get complacent!
If you have been walking 1 km every day for 2 weeks, and you are starting to find that you aren’t feeling anywhere near as tired or fatigued as you were 2 weeks ago when you started, start walking 1.5 km every day, push yourself!
Progressing our physical activity is important for building stronger cardiovascular endurance and strength, if we can walk further and for longer periods of time because we are now fitter, we will be able to burn more calories, helping with weight reduction and improving all our other physical markers.
Be mindful of your posture!
Posture is crucial! By adopting good overall bodily posture when sitting or standing throughout our days, we encourage the stabilising muscles of our head and neck, shoulders, spine, pelvis, knees and ankles to engage, supporting our joints and strengthening these muscles. This can help massively when it comes to the management of joint pain, as well as the management of some acute and chronic musculoskeletal conditions. Being pain-free during exercise and physical activity will encourage us to do it more because we feel better doing it. So let’s fix that posture!
Incorporate a healthy mindset towards physical activity and exercise
There will be moments along your journey when you are feeling a bit low or a bit tired and not at your best, that’s fine, it’s normal, accepting that you may not feel 100% all the time when exercising is part of the process. Try learning to feel comfortable when you are slightly uncomfortable, those are the times you will look back and think ‘yes! I did that’.
First consult a professional
It’s important to consult a physical health therapist like a Biokineticist, Physiotherapist or your General Practitioner before engaging in physical exercise for the first time. This is especially true if you are very overweight (BMI > 30), if you are engaging in physical activity for the first time, if you had any serious previous injuries or operations or if you have any other medical conditions (high blood pressure, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, previous joint replacements, or any underlying medical conditions).
Consulting a Biokineticist beforehand for example, will allow you to establish, with the help of your Biokineticist, the musculoskeletal areas of your body that will need more strengthening and developing than others, as well as what type of stretches are best suited to you and your body and what it goes through on your day to day, all bodies are different.
