Picture your daily workout routine. You could go on a walk, go to a Pilates class, or head to the gym to hit the weight rack or the treadmill. You have many daily options for getting in some essential movement, but how do you know your workouts are effective? You may see the desired results after a few weeks of regular exercise, but what if you don’t or your progress stalls? Or what if you get injured? These events could indicate that you are not addressing something you should do before, during, or after your workouts.
Even the most experienced fitness gurus need to step back and assess their daily workouts occasionally to ensure continued results. Our trainers at EW Motion Therapy love giving this kind of advice to our clients of any fitness level - their ultimate goal is your success. Even if you decide not to train with us, you can still review this list of six essential elements to include in your daily workout so you can continue to work toward your goals.
Six things to address during every workout
Our fitness experts have determined six essential elements to include in daily workouts. They are:
- Tissue quality
- Joint mobility
- Activation
- Strength training
- Cardio
- Cool down
Tissue quality
First up is tissue quality, which refers to the health of your body’s tissue. This includes muscles, ligaments, and tendons, all essential for healthy movement. When you work out, your tissue breaks down to a certain degree, and if you let tissue breakdown go uncontrolled with consistently intense workouts, you increase your risk of injury. You can ensure tissue quality by implementing foam rolling or massage techniques before and between workouts. Doing this will reduce tension and improve blood flow to the areas you want to work on. For example, before you run, foam rolling your quads and glutes is a great way to get warmed up and ensure they perform as they are supposed to.
Joint mobility
Next, you need to address joint mobility, similar to tissue quality. But instead of focusing on muscles, you focus on joints, like your knees, hips, and shoulders. Joints can stiffen with decreased and increased activity, so a stretching routine or mobility exercises before and after work out can help promote fluid movement in essential joints. Returning to our running example, running can take a toll on your hips, knees, and ankles over time, so taking those joints through their full range of motion before and after a run can ensure optimal performance.
Activation
Part of ensuring tissue quality is practicing activation of the muscle groups you are working out that day. Activation is simply “waking up” the muscles you want to use so they are ready to perform. This can look like light strength exercises with a resistance band to activate your shoulders or squats to activate your glutes. Whatever muscles you know you will use during your chosen workout that day, ensuring they are activated before you begin increases blood flow and reduces the risk of injury.
Strength training
You may think of strength training as just lifting weights, but it is essential for promoting functional movement. You need strong muscles to get out of bed in the morning, walk up and down stairs, and push a cart full of groceries around the store, not just to look cool. To work toward this goal, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends strength training with moderate resistance two or more days per week, performing 8-12 repetitions of each exercise in 1-3 sets.
Additionally, strength training is not only meant to give you large biceps. Fitness guru and Olympic lifter Dan John has spent his career perfecting his strength training routine, and he developed five essential movements that we recommend all our clients perform during each strength training session. These include:
- Push
- Pull
- Hinge
- Squat
- Carry
Incorporating these movements will ensure your muscles are healthy and can handle the demands of daily functional movement.
Cardio
A primary purpose of exercise is increasing your heart rate, which most people do through cardio. The main reason to do cardio is to increase your cardiac output, which is the amount of blood your heart can pump per beat. Your heart is a group of giant muscles, and the more you increase your cardiac output, the stronger and healthier your heart muscle will be.
Contrary to popular belief, your cardio does not always have to be intense. The type of cardio you do will depend on your goals. For example, if you are a distance runner, you must maintain more stamina and a steadier heart rate than a sprinter. Lower-intensity cardio allows your heart muscle to stretch more than high-intensity cardio, though workouts like HIIT can benefit many. A general recommendation from the ACSM is to do 150 minutes of cardio per week, whether 30 minutes of low to moderate-intensity cardio five days a week or 75 minutes of high-intensity cardio two to three days a week.
Cool down
Once you’ve worked up a sweat, it is not the best practice to stop cold turkey for your muscles or joints. Prioritizing a cool-down at the end of your workouts will allow a slower, healthier reduction of heart rate and blood flow, an essential beginning of recovery. If you go on a 25-minute run, for example, allow 5 or 10 minutes at the end for a slow jog or walk. You can use your cool-down time to rehydrate and reflect on how good you feel after moving your body.
How can personal training help?
Now you know the six essential elements of any workout session and can structure your daily workout routine accordingly. We know the availability of fitness information on the internet can be a blessing and a curse, as you have plenty of options, but you may need help knowing who to trust. This is where a personal trainer can come in. As certified, trained fitness professionals, they can assess your current fitness level and your goals to help you develop the best path forward for your health and overall well-being. Our personal trainers at EW Motion Therapy consider it a privilege to do this for our clients every day - we want to be your biggest cheerleader as you work toward your goals. If you are curious about what else personal training can do for you, click the button below to download our answers to 20 frequently asked questions.
