Do You Like Group Training? My Top 3 Tips To Avoid Injuries!
Here’s how you can bring out the best in your training whether you enjoy Crossfit, F45, BodyFit or other similar group training programs.
1. Manage your time
Did you know there is just as much importance on rest as there is on working hard?
Most busy people who train early in the morning or after work are working their health stuff around your busy day.
The body system that prepares your body to fight through your day, manage your house, function in peak condition at work and get you up for a training session is called your sympathetic nervous system aka the ‘fight or flight’ system.
The opposite with allows you to digest food, rest into that Zen like sleep state for repair and recovery is called your parasympathetic nervous system aka ‘rest & digest’ system.
If you are constantly in flight or fight mode then it’s like a computer with 100 tabs open! You start to slow the processing of computer and it’s easier for things to break and go wrong.
Recommendation: Try and balance your time in fight or flight mode with rest and digest mode. It may be simple things like focussing on better sleep or managing stress better! Small steps guys it really makes a difference.
2. Have fun
In group training classes it can be hard to be an individual sometimes because you want to keep up with the rest of the crew. But it’s fun to be working hard together in a group setting!
You might start to push the boundaries a touch too far because you want to keep up and develop problems like soreness and tightness.
Seems innocent first then it really accelerates as you don’t allow enough rest (see first point) to recover.
Then those alarm bells in the morning seem all too hard to get up for and you start pressing the snooze button.
Next thing you miss a couple of sessions and then you drop off completely. Not fun!
Recommendation: Try and find the balance between ‘pushing hard’ and ‘pushing the boundaries’. If you watch how professional athletes train they are loaded very carefully with very specific programming from the professional strength & conditioning staff. They DO NOT push the boundaries every day but when they ‘push hard’ when they need to!
3. Catch problems before it becomes an injury
Again, using professional athletes as the example did you know during pre-season they spend this time trying to get their bodies fit for the season coming up.
It might mean spending time in the gym getting strong.
It might mean working hard to get improvements with conditioning.
It might mean reviewing their diet to lose weight.
But all of them would go through a full screening of their body to see how much movement and strength is available.
Why?
To catch problems before it becomes an injury.
If you’re fitness freak and you really enjoy training in a group setting with your friends the last thing you want is to get injured.
Recommendation: We have a ‘pre-season’ screening test just for you. It’s called the Body Assessment Tool (BAT) Test. You don’t need to be a professional athlete to have one of these done anymore! Now you can identify the reason for the aches and pains and fix them today so you can continue to enjoy your training!
If you’re interested in learning more about our BAT Test then click the link below for more information on how to get started!
– Leki