Healthy Healing by Michelle Steinke-Baumgard

Author:Michelle Steinke-Baumgard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

Warming Up Safely and Effectively

You’ve hopefully taken some baby steps to start exercising, or at least pondered which forms of exercise might be right for you. Great job! As you move through this program, one element of fitness will be key to your safety and success with your new lifestyle: warming up. Often people jump into their workouts cold, and they risk damaging their muscles, joints, and tendons. Regardless of what you do for fitness, make sure that you always appropriately and safely warm up your body before you begin. One of my favorite ways to have clients warm up is with dynamic moves. These moves should not be confused with stretching, which should be done at the conclusion of your workout, when your body is warm and loose. With a dynamic warm-up you increase blood flow and warm up your muscles, joints, and tendons as well as pay attention to your mind–body connection, clearing the neural pathways before getting into your workout.

You can jog in place, skip rope, or lift weights with low reps and very light weight. Rowing and walking on the treadmill are also great forms of warming up. As is key with everything in fitness, you need to listen to your body and never put more stress on your body than you can safely handle.

You may also utilize your warm-up to give you the mental strength to complete the actual workout. I know it’s hard to get started, and some days you just feel like doing nothing more than lying in bed. By choosing a dynamic warm-up you are helping your brain and body prepare for and crave more movement. A little movement will make you feel better, and the warm-up might be all you need to keep going. During your warm-up listen to music that will inspire you to keep going, and remind yourself that this time is for you and part of your choice to heal in a healthy manner. Just ten minutes will most likely give you the energy to do another ten minutes, and so on.

There may be some days when the warm-up is all you can tolerate before you have to take a break, and that’s okay. There is no judgment in this process. Promise yourself the warm-up and then see how you feel when you’re done. I’m betting that the warm-up will make you feel better, and you will want to keep going, but I give you permission to start slow and work your way up. Healthy healing is not an overnight process but rather a lifelong commitment to yourself and your life after loss.

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