Getting in Shape in Order to Get in Shape

Do you feel like you want to get in shape but whenever you try you notice that your muscles and joints feel too stiff and rusty? This can be discouraging and frustrating and could ultimately make you feel as if you should just throw in the towel with exercise altogether.

So you're motivated and ready to be active and get into shape. Working out and being active is always hard when you're just getting started, but if your body has been inactive for too long activities may be even harder on you making you feel like being active is just impossible for you. The problem is your joints, tendons, and muscles are just rusty and have settled in to a nice rut. Your body isn't used to the range of motion that being active requires so you have to take some time to train your body into functioning through these new movements. Simply just doing the activity and fighting the pain can cause injury as you would be doing something that puts too much strain on your body.

So what do you do? The answer is to take a week to prepare your body with simple stretching and low impact range of motion movements to get your joints, tendons, and muscles familiar with the movements that need to be done. Imagine the activity you are doing and picture what movements need to be done to perform the activity and simulate the activity slowly. Most likely you will hear little popping and grinding sounds while doing these movements. These sounds are actually good news, because it's the sound of scar tissue breaking up. Imagine a rusty door hinge with limited movement. Now imagine if you were to continue to move the door within its limited range of motion. As time goes on the rust will start to crumble away and as a result the door hinge will gain a larger range of motion. The more you do this the more rust comes off and the easier the door can swing freely and this is the same principle to your body. The door is your limb (arm or leg), the hinge is your joint, and the rust is the scar tissue that is obstructing full movement. This process isn't physically demanding at all and is actually quite relaxing. Once your body is free to move physical activity will be a lot easier for you to enjoy.