Now that we have many clients exercising from home with us (facetime, zoom etc) we are reminded of the need for safety. It is one thing to push hard striving for a great workout but there is a definitive line where effectiveness ends and injury potential begins.

For the most part our attitude has always been the same. Moving quick may make you ‘feel’ like you are working hard and being athletic but it comes with momentum and cheating. Slower movement seems boring at first but make no mistake:

Slower movement is always harder. As you get tired while moving quickly you try to go even quicker using more and more momentum and cheating. When you get tired while moving slow you end up going even slower and making the exercise even tougher (yet safer)

Proof

Try this simple experiment as proof. You are going to do push-ups, if you can do regular ones fine but you should be able to do at least 10. If not simply do them from your knees you will be shocked at the result.

1. Do as many push-ups as you can at a standard pace of 1 second down and 1 second up. Really stick with it and do absolutely as many as possible.

Next rest for a full 5 minutes or more.

2. Do your push-ups counting a full 5 seconds in each direction. No jerking or cheating just 5 seconds down and 5 seconds up nice and controlled. Keep going until you cannot sustain movement if fact when you stall keep trying to push as hard as possible for a full 3 seconds!

Compare…which was tougher. In fact if you are familiar with how push-ups feel for you, you need only try the slow ones to note the huge difference.

Bottom line

The take home is simple, move slow and controlled and avoid injury. The number one reason we hear for people not having a regular weekly workout program is “I hurt myself”. Even from die-hards and pro’s we constantly hear how this or that is physically went wrong and has messed up their training.

Remember – exercise is training and medicine it is not competition. Needing medicine as a result of exercise is completely the opposite of what you want.

Be well, be strong,

Andrew and Tierney