Injuries are a nightmare – you just feel like you’re getting somewhere with your training and fitness and boom, an injury rears its ugly head. So, how can you avoid getting injured? Here are my top tips for staying in peak condition:
- Don’t skip your warm ups and cool downs – we are all guilty of this every now and again, that age old excuse of “I don’t have time to warm up or cool down”, the question is do you have time to be injured? The likelihood of getting injured when you neglect your warm up and cool down increases dramatically. This is why I make sure I include a warm up of dynamic stretches and a cool down in all my online workouts.
- Don’t run before you can walk! Start gradually and build as your strength and fitness grows. Going in too hard too fast is one of the leading causes of injury. It is great to hit the ground running and push yourself but there is a balance, push yourself but do so safely!
- Prioritise recovery – you can’t expect results if you don’t give your body the chance to recover, repair and grow. If you train arms hard one day, focus on legs or core the next, or give yourself a rest day between hard sessions. Use active recovery like walking the dog, Pilates, yoga or swimming to allow your muscles to recover and adapt and to allow them to perform the next time you ask them to.
- Focus on form – this is key for weight training. Having good, correct form is vital to stay injury free when strength training. Make sure you have been taught correct technique or follow a group programme which has all the important teaching points on exercises as you do them. Even better, workout in front of the mirror so you can see errors and correct them. This is definitely worth getting right before you start increasing weight, reps and sets as you can do some real damage if you’re not careful.
I have long since been an advocate of strength training, particularly for women, and with this in mind I built my platform – Caroline’s Circuits. My workouts are 4 times a week for just 30 minutes. They focus on strength based circuits which work different muscle groups and challenge the body, keeping the heart rate moderate to high with passive or active rest – they give the perfect mix of strength and cardio for the best results.
The workouts are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (they are all recorded and available to you on demand within an hour of the session if you can’t make the live). Classes have been specifically designed to suit all fitness levels and create fitness habits which last & which produce results.
Intrigued to know more or have a go? Try a class for free here or read more about the platform here.
If you have any questions please do get in touch.
For more workout ideas and to find out a bit more about me check out my Instagram.
Caroline x
