Health&Wellbeing

Exercise – part 2 of 3 by Heather Smith

Next in our series of things to do now you’re not in your 20’s, let’s look at exercise. Exercise is important throughout our lives, but the way we approach it should change as we get older. Warm up - Dedicating more than a minute to warming up before your workouts is going to be time well spent. Things take a little longer to get going than they used to, so do mobility drills and get the blood moving before you start the main part of your workout. You might be surprised at how well you can move after a proper warm up – not to mention the importance of maintaining or improving how well you can move overall. Prioritise resistance training - A well put together workout at home or in the gym becomes even more important with age. The muscle we hold on our bodies is precious and drops rapidly with age, so anything you can do to maintain (or improve) your muscle mass will pay huge dividends. Resistance training also has a positive impact on our bones and reduces risk of osteoporosis. Keep turning up - Routine is hard. Especially when you’re a fully grown adult with a long list of responsibilities. But keep turning up for your workouts, keep building the routine. Even if you’re not in the mood and just put in an average workout, it still has benefits – especially over not having turned up – and might even be better sometimes since you’re less likely to wake up the next day exhausted and needing a few days to recover from the aches! They say 60% of your workouts will be average, 20% will be fantastic and 20% will be terrible –just turn up and get them done. Part 3 to follow next month. www.fitbiztraining.co.uk