Basic Fitness Is Not Just for Beginners
My client Christine who is featured in this video has had a long and winding fitness journey. As someone with multiple health problems, including bipolar disorder and ulcerative colitis, she has taken multiple breaks from working out and tracking her nutrition. It’s not ideal, but the thing I really respect about Christine is that she always begins again once she’s feeling better. Sometimes it’s been a short gap in our workout sessions, and we can hop back into lifting weights and doing significant cardio. More recently, she was sick for about four months with multiple respiratory infections and needed to start with basic fitness exercises like the ones we cover in this video.
Beginner’s Mind & Basic Fitness
Learning to exercise with proper form is a lot like learning to meditate or do yoga. Having a beginner’s mind will do wonders for your basic fitness as you learn how to engage your muscles properly, including ones you may have never thought of before! Many of my clients—even the ones that have been working out a lot on their own—are surprised to discover what it really feels like to engage their abdominal core or drop their shoulders to properly engage the back and shoulder muscles.
If you are new to basic fitness, you can definitely tackle the videos I’ve been sharing online and on this blog during the coronavirus quarantine. However, as soon as we are allowed back in gyms, I definitely recommend that you contact me or another qualified professional for an in-person assessment and some basic fitness routines that will help you develop proper form. They may not seem that challenging at first, but these exercises will teach you to listen to your body, so that when you start adding weights or doing more complex movements, you will have a good sense of what your body should feel like.
Why Basic Fitness Matters to Your Health
This sense of being in tune with your body is critical for two things. First, proper form will ensure that you get the most benefit from your exercises, whether you’re working on basic fitness or more advanced exercises. For example, it’s easy to involve your back when doing ab exercises, but this will mean that you will notice less results from your crunches or whatever it is that you are doing. Second, proper form will help prevent injury. Using the back versus abs example again, if you are in tune with your body, you will notice when your back muscles begin to engage. You can then make adjustments or take a rest and continue with the exercise when you are ready, focusing on the abs and not risking a back injury in the process.
In Christine’s case, even though she is an experienced member of my Carlsbad gym, she was experiencing some tightness and disconnection with her body. By going back to basic fitness, we ensure that she has the foundation in line so that she can move on to more advanced training successfully.
Like Christine, you may be feeling overweight, depressed, and tired. Maybe it’s been a few months—or longer—since you’ve worked out. Maybe the quarantine has you wondering what the point is. Let Christine’s example inspire you to start today, wherever you are and whatever challenges you are up against..Today is a good day for fitness.