How to Have a Balanced Workout

Balance in all aspects of our lives is something to strive for because it is not healthy to have a lop-sided life – all work and no recreation time, for example. Our exercise programs also need to be balanced, otherwise, we run the risk of being injured, getting bored, and wasting our time because the workout is no longer effective. Here are the different ways your workout can become unbalanced.

Heart and muscles.
Imagine your heart to be the engine of a car and your muscles and bones as the structure of the car. A car would not be considered to be in good shape if the engine was working fine but the doors were falling off. The opposite is also true -- a car with the most attractive paint job and solid structure is still a lousy car if the engine is not in good running order. A balanced workout program combines both cardiovascular and muscular strength components.

Strength and flexibility.
Many exercisers tend to place very little importance on stretching, sometimes even looking at flexibility exercises as a waste of time. Concentrating only on strengthening the muscles but neglecting to stretch them is asking for trouble. The result is an unbalanced prone-to-injury body that is overly tight and inflexible.

We once had a male client in the gym who would always find a way to sneak out without stretching in spite of being told that his tight hamstrings would eventually cause lower back problems. It went on this way for a few years with us nagging him and him not listening to us until, one day, his lower back went into a tight spasm that needed physical therapy. We never had to remind him again to stretch. It’s sad, but many people have to learn the hard way.

Right and left sides of the body.
Fitness writer, Suzanne Schlosberg, interviewed several experts regarding right-left imbalances. John Blievernicht, president of a rehabilitation clinic in Chicago, claims that just about every athlete he has worked with has this type of imbalance. He says it is also prevalent among fitness enthusiasts.

The experts said that if one side of your body is more than 10 percent stronger than the other side, you could cause excessive wear and tear on your joints, muscles, and ligaments. They suggest testing yourself for this kind of imbalance by performing exercises one side at a time to see which side is stronger and has better control.

To fix the problem, Tom Purvis, head trainer of the National Academy of Sports Medicine, suggests challenging each side of your body appropriately. Lift the amount of weight you can with your weak side and maintain the original weight on your strong side Do this for two sets. Then, do a third set using both sides simultaneously while focusing on making the weak side do it’s share of the work. Continue this way until both sides even out in strength.

On the other hand, you may find that one side is a lot more flexible than the other is. Remedy this situation by stretching more on the tight side (hold the stretches longer and do it more often than the more flexible side) until both sides become even or almost even.

In terms of being steady on our feet, many people don’t realize that they have very poor balance on one side compared to the other. If you are right handed, you will probably be unsteady on your left leg. Find out which side has less balance by standing on one leg for one minute and count how many times you almost lose your balance or have to touch the floor to steady yourself.

Upper and lower parts of the body.
This type of workout imbalance can lead to an asymmetrical shape, not to mention unbalanced strength. Consider the man who builds muscle mass only in his upper body -- he ends up looking like a “lollipop” or “chicken drumstick”. Another example is the runner who has strong legs but a flabby and weak upper body.

Front and back of the body.
Oftentimes, exercisers only focus on what they can see in the mirror – the front part of their body and forget about what they cannot see – the muscles in the back. Too many exercises are done for the muscles in front and not enough or no exercises at all are done for the muscles behind. Since muscles work in opposite pairs around a joint, both sets have to be strong and flexible to protect and stabilize the joint.

This doesn’t mean that the strength of opposing muscle groups (an example is the quadriceps and hamstrings – front and back of the thighs) has to always be exactly equal. However, each muscle has to be as strong as it can be within its functional limits; otherwise, the joint (in our example, the knee) is not stable and prone to injury.

Too much of a good thing.
Doing too much of the same type of exercise can also cause problems because you overstress the same area of your body day after day. A cousin’s husband recently had to be operated for a torn Achilles tendon (a thick cord-like tissue attached to the back of the heel) from using his stepping machine two hours a day. Cross-training or doing different exercise activities not only keeps the injuries away; it also keeps your workout fresh and exciting.

Activity and rest.
Too much exercise can actually be bad for you. Moderate amounts of exercise strengthen the immune system making us less prone to colds and flu. Too much exercise has the opposite effect. Make sure that you balance out your activity and rest periods. On the other hand, don’t rest too much either because, as someone once said, “Too much rest makes us rust”!

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