Are You a One-Workout Wonder?
Some of us are lucky enough to find a fitness activity that we absolutely love. And we get so comfortable with this one exercise, we forget to diversify. But doing the same activity repeatedly can take our bodies out of balance.
I’ve shared some insight about what type of exercise will help you get your body back in balance, prevent injuries and help develop an element of your fitness and health that might be a little neglected.
Also see: Star Secrets to Shaping Up!
Swimmers
Swimmers are notoriously lacking in coordination and balance out of the water. Plus swimming will have no impact on improving bone density, so the best thing to complement water fitness is land fitness with impact and weight-bearing activities, particularly working with weights.
Also see: Jane Clapp's Home Bootcamp Workout
Cycling and Spinning
Cycling position makes us hunch forward. Sitting at a desk all day also creates hunchback posture. Too much cycling combined with working at a desk could even make us lose some height! To open the chest and bring the spine back into alignment, choose any strength activities including Pilates that focus on deep core stabilization, working postural muscles and calming the nervous system after long, intense rides.
Also see: Jane Clapp's Crunch-Free Core Workout
Pilates
Many pilates exercises have us lying down, not standing or engaging in exercises using large muscle groups. Exercise that involves large, upright compound movements to improve functional strength is important to balance out the fine-tuning approach that Pilates brings. Exercise that simulates day-to-day life like squats, pulling movements and pushing movements to improve large muscle strength including the heart muscle will balance out the more heady nature of Pilates training.
Also see: Jane Clapp's Happiness Workout
Runners
People who love to run will hit the pavement regardless of fatigue, injury or nagging pain. Yoga can improve overall joint mobility and improves deep body awareness. Yoga also works on foot strength, naturally building arches to avoid foot problems down the road. Running doesn’t require a deep connection with a variety of movement patterns, but yoga encourages literal and figurative balance by making us tune in and listen to our bodies.
Yoga Devotees
Yoga is all about calming the body, and removing unnecessary tension. But to improve cardiovascular strength (i.e. make our heart muscle stronger) we have to put it under controlled strategic stress. So yoga devotees can lack cardiovascular strength and need to engage in high intensity interval training to build the heart muscle in a way that yoga won’t by creating peaks in heart rate repeatedly in one workout.
Also see: Try the Peak 8 Workout
Heavy Lifters
People who love to lift heavy weights often miss out on training important yet small muscles that help stabilize joints. One of the main joints that suffer in people looking to build size and strength is the most unstable joint in the body, the shoulder. This joint needs a lot of TLC if you want to continue lifting like a champ.
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