What's the best kind of exercise to do?

What’s the best kind of exercise to do? 

The simplest answer to this is actually a bit of everything! 

The reason I say this is because your body was designed to work in different ways, rather than the same repeating patterns, and when we deviate from a varied routine, there is usually a greater likelihood of muscular discomfort and/or movement dysfunction further down the line which can create limiting factors in your lifestyle. 

 

Currently there seems to be quite a lot of emerging health and fitness trends, and none of them are wrong in any way at all, but the tendency seems to be that it’s all of one thing, instead of a more strategic way of thinking that will cover different aspects of health and fitness as part of a well balanced lifestyle. 

 

For example, if you just work on stretching and flexibility, and don’t do strength training work alongside it, you may feel more supple, but it’s likely that your strength levels may drop gradually over time, which reduces your overall functional performance and ability to do other things. Or if you just focus on strength training and don’t work on improving cardiovascular performance at the same time, it can slow your recovery from exercise and can also limit your ability to do hi intensity strength work for just a very small amount of time before fatigue sets in, and again that is not very functional in terms of how we are supposed to move. 

 

From a sports massage therapy standpoint, the effect of cardiovascular performance and strength in terms of applying load to muscles when used together are actually therapeutic for recovery purposes. If a muscle has been strained, for example, a pectoral muscle (upper chest area). Once the initial inflammation has subsided in the muscle, the fastest way to aid recovery is by increasing the blood flow to the muscles through high repetition weight training resulting in increased vascularisation (blood flow) to the area which in turn brings the nutrients required to heal fibres, but this action is made better if this is done with adequate resistance repeatedly, which is where the cardiovascular element plays its part, because the more efficient the blood flow to the area, the more likely it is that recovery will be quicker. 

 

Strength training can take many different forms, be it lifting weights, Pilates, calisthenics etc, but the action of putting load through muscles to create the effect of adaptation of the fibres to become stronger, is in itself a therapeutic process, which is why if you are currently having some kind of rehab with a physiotherapist, as an example, after injury, you will often be given some strength exercises to do, and I know that sometimes it is quite boring, but the principle behind this is that the body will adapt to external loads and physical stress, in a positive way, but it just takes a bit of time for your body to respond, following the training stimulus, but in time it will do, and sometimes more quickly than you would expect. 

 

The role that sports massage plays in this is to provide that reset and window of opportunity once the initial acute phase of injury has passed, helping restore better movement and getting you ready to do the work that is required as I’ve outlined above. As a lot of people get used to having a sports massage treatment, and getting that feeling of wellbeing after the session, it often acts as a way to reset and recalibrate your posture or general movement as part of a balanced wellness routine, which can promote that feeling of knowing you are looking after your body in a balanced way, and that reduces your chance of injury or movement dysfunction in the future. 

 

So for the best version of you, I would make sure you do strength work, cardiovascular work, stretching and mobility, and some speed work (some faster paced stuff in shorter intervals is usually best) because you will feel better and be less likely to have aches and pains as a result.