First published in January 2019

January is the time of year for resolutions and many of you may have resolved to take up more exercise.

It is also the time of year when I see more people who have been injured in the gym or due to new exercise regimes.

All the evidence is pointing towards exercise, healthy eating and stress reduction as the most beneficial things that you can do for your health. So taking up more exercise is a good idea but some people are putting off exercise due to injury.

In my early twenties I used to play a lot of rugby and at the age of 21 had a prolapsed (slipped) disc which meant I needed 3 months of bed rest and a further 6 months of rehab before I could get back to normal life.

At the time I was advised by specialist that I should never run again, consequently I avoided running and stopped playing sport for nearly15 years. Looking back, with the knowledge I have now, it was possibly the worst piece of advice I was ever given. 

The reason that this was a bad piece of advice is that it prevented me from making as full a recovery as possible. It was never explained to me why that injury had happened to me and how the body would strengthen and heal over time given the right amount of rest, nutrition and exercise. Whilst the advice not to go running immediately after was probably sensible extending that out for the rest of my life was not.

Taking part in cardiovascular exercise is one of the most important things you can do for your health, so having limiting factors is a problem. Injury may slow you down or cause you to modify what you do but it should not stop you.

It is important that everyone has a good base aerobic fitness before progressing to more advanced exercise.  This can be done by simply walking, swimming, cycling or running. Monitoring your heart rate would insure that you are working aerobically and if you are recovering from injury you really want to understand why the injury happened in the first place and how you can strengthen your body so you can prevent it happening again.

There are several ways to train at your optimum aerobic capacity but for most people and certainly those over 40 brisk walking would be enough and is very beneficial for all other age groups as well.

More often than not most people who come to me don’t know how they got their injury. And may think it is just age related, its due to repetitive usage, possibly sport related or a recurrence of a prior injury from years ago. I often find this not to be the case and can help trace the root cause of the weakness or injury and help resolve the issue.