Safe movements.

Mindful attention to your alignment.

Proper care of your mind and body.

It’s all super important, especially if you’re taking on a challenging workout! Here are 4 ways to keep your body safe during a workout.

Warm Up & Cool Down

Although it can be tempting to overlook the warming up and cooling down parts of the workout, they are essential. Do your research and understand what movements will help you prepare your body for whatever you are working on — mobility of the major joints, for example. Neck, shoulders, wrists, hips, knees, ankles. Also be aware of your spinal flexibility. Twists and thoracic spine mobility are often ignored.

Give yourself ample time to warm up your body and cool it down and you’ll see improvement in not only your performance but also your recovery, soreness levels, and injury prevention.

Support Your Muscles & Ligaments

Activities like yoga and weight training can help you build strength to support your joints. If you have instability or a weak area, focus on that. If you have an injury, get some extra support to that area of the body. Braces, compression, and KT tape are awesome. If you want to know how does kinesiology tape works find out here so you understand how to use it, or ask a professional for help.

Wear Appropriate Clothing

What you wear also has an impact on how safe you are while you are exercising. In particular, you need to make sure that you are doing all you can to wear clothing which is not going to catch on anything, which allows you to move freely without restriction, and which is going to be as comfortable as possible. There might also be specific items you need to wear for certain sports and so on too, so be sure to do that if necessary.

Seek Balance

With any workout, be sure to:

Listen to your body.
Move as slowly as you need to in order to feel like the movement is safe and controlled.
Pay attention to signs of overtraining.
Meditation can help you find the focus to learn something new about your body, or interpret what an injury, pain or tension is related to. The mind/body connection is real!
Have a team of people who you can turn to as a resource. Personal trainers, yoga teachers, exercise class teachers, sports coaches, chiropractors, massage therapists and other professionals are experts. Ask good questions and consider their answers with a grain of salt. Is this relevant to you? Does this resonate intuitively?
Again and again, come back to yourself. Do a gut check. You have many answers within you that no one else does. Let you be the one in charge of you!

What other ways do you ensure safety while you work out? I’d love to hear!

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