Module 4:  Preparing For and Recovering From Exercise

Preparing for Exercise

No matter where you are in your current exercise program, it is important that you are prepared to exercise effectively. Preparing for exercise includes:

1. Exercise Safety Precautions
2. Proper Clothing
3. Proper Shoes and Socks
4. Proper Nutrition
5. A Warm-up

Over the next few pages, we’ll investigate each of these ideas in more detail.

Exercise Safety Precautions

If you are planning to increase your physical activity or start an exercise program, it is important that you assess your current health. The PAR-Q (Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire) is the gold standard in fitness safety, used by doctors, trainers, and health clubs all over the world.

The PAR-Q is comprised of 7 questions and can help rule out any underlying health concerns that could worsen with exercise.

To complete the assessment, answer yes or no to the following questions:

1. Has your doctor ever said that you have a heart condition and that you should only do physical activity recommended by a doctor?
2. Do you feel pain in your chest when you do physical activity?
3. In the past month, have you had chest pain when you were not doing physical activity?
4. Do you lose your balance because of dizziness or do you ever lose consciousness?
5. Do you have a bone or joint problem (for example, back, knee, or hip) that could be made worse by a change in your physical activity?
6. Is your doctor currently prescribing drugs (for example, water pills) for your blood pressure or heart condition?
7. Do you know of any other reason why you should not do physical activity?

If you answer YES to any of the questions on this list, you must check with your doctor and get cleared for exercise before you start.

Likewise, if you have any chronic medical conditions (such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or arthritis) or risk factors (such as smoking or being more than 20 pounds overweight), and have not discussed exercising with your doctor, you should do so before beginning. Exercise is often an important part of the treatment for such conditions, but you may have some limitations or special needs that your doctor can tell you about.

Additional Safety Guidelines

• Always remember the golden rule of exercise safety: start slowly, build up the intensity and duration of your exercise gradually (refer to the FITT Principle section to review exercise intensity and duration).
• If you are feeling unwell, with fever, cold or flu, don’t overexert yourself.
• If during exercise you become dizzy, nauseated or short of breath, stop immediately and consult your doctor.
• Always warm up before you exercise and cool
  down afterwards.
• Drink plenty of water before and after exercise.
• Learn proper exercise techniques to reduce injury.
• Watch out for changes in the weather. If it is too cold, too hot or raining, make accommodations to your exercise routine.

Proper Clothing

The most important principle in choosing clothing for exercise is to ensure comfort and freedom of movement. The material should be absorbent and well ventilated and you should also choose your clothing to suit weather conditions. In addition, women should always wear a supportive sports bra. There are many factors to be considered when choosing appropriate exercise clothing. For instance, did you know that fabric softeners negatively change the way your clothes absorb sweat?

Cold Weather Clothing Recommendations

• Check the temperature and wind conditions before you go out and do not exercise if conditions are dangerous.
• Keep your head, hands and feet warm.
• Dress in layers that can provide a trapped layer of dry air near the skin (avoid cotton sweats and other similar materials).

Warm Weather Clothing Recommendations

• It is best not to participate in intense outdoor exercise when the heat index, a measurement of temperature and relative humidity, registers in the dangerous zone.
• Wear light, loose fitting clothes that can breathe. Cotton is always a good choice.
  If your outdoor activity produces a lot of perspiration, consider clothing that is designed to help remove sweat from the body.
• Wear sunscreen. Even if you exercise early in the morning or late in the evening, if the sun can reach you, then you can get burned. Not only is a sunburn bad on the skin and potentially dangerous, but it also hinders your body’s ability to stay cool.

Proper Shoes and Socks

Proper footwear is essential for maintaining your exercise program. Below are a few tips for selecting the best footwear:

• Choose shoes that fit properly, especially at the toe and heel. Shoes that are too tight or too loose will raise blisters on your feet. Athletic shoes should be comfortable from the very beginning, without a break-in period.
• Choose a shoe that is specific to your exercise program and designed specifically for how your body moves. For example, if a majority of your cardiorespiratory endurance activity is running long distances and you are prone to lean or tilt your foot inward, get a running shoe that corrects for this action, termed pronation. Supination is when the weight on the foot is placed on the outside portion of the foot when running. Ultimately a runner should distribute the impact of the step equally across the foot.
• Bring or wear a pair of socks that you will be wearing with your shoes when you purchase them. You should always wear socks with your athletic shoes; otherwise your foot will rub against the inside of the shoe, resulting in injury. Socks should fit properly so that circulation is not affected, and cotton is the best choice of material. Nylon is unsuitable, because it doesn’t absorb perspiration, and can easily cause skin allergy.
• Do not hesitate to ask the salesperson how good a particular pair of shoes would be for a certain activity, or how one shoe compares to another, or even what shoe they think is best for you and your exercise routine. Remember, they are there to help you and should be knowledgeable about different types of foot apparel.

Don’t wait to wash! Don’t leave your sportswear in a duffel bag after a workout. Bacteria love to grow in moist places, so make sure that your sportswear dries as quickly as possible, even if you’re planning to wash it later.

Proper Nutrition

Nutrition is fuel for your body. It is just like a car; if you don’t give your body the fuel it needs, it will not run properly. Below are
key nutrition points to consider before
you exercise.

1. Eat something light before you exercise, such as toast or peanut butter and crackers.
2. Don’t exercise on an empty stomach, or you may feel faint.
3. Likewise, don’t exercise when you’re too full, as this will affect your digestion.
4. Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated during exercise.

Water works:  Drinking water about a half hour before each meal can lead to consuming fewer calories during a meal.

Warm-up Guidelines

Effective warm-up exercises are essential for a safe exercise routine and require only five to ten minutes. Warm-up exercise gets your body ready for exercise by speeding up your heartbeat, raising your body temperature, increasing blood circulation, and loosening up your joints. Not only will your performance improve, you will also reduce the chance of injury.

To make your warm-up effective, you need to do movements that increase your heart rate and breathing, and slightly increase the temperature of your muscle tissue. A good indication of a proper warm-up is that the body produces a light sweat. In the past, warm-up recommendations included static flexibility or stretching exercises during warm-up. However, recent research show that a warm-up routine that includes static stretching with a warm-up routine improves flexibility, but does not appear to prevent injury during exercise (Page, 2012; Small, McNaughton, & Matthews, 2008.)

General Warm-up

If you’re exercising for general fitness, allow 5 to 10 minutes for your pre-exercise warm-up (or slightly longer in cold weather). To begin your warm-up, perform 5 minutes of light (low intensity) physical activity such as walking or jogging.

Sport-specific Warm-up

If you are exercising at a higher level than for general fitness, or have a particular sporting goal in mind, you may need a longer warm-up and one that is designed specifically for your sport. One of the best ways to warm up is to perform the upcoming exercise at a slow pace. This will allow you to simulate at low intensity the movements you are about to perform at higher intensity during your chosen activity. Examples include going through the motion of bowling a ball for bowlers; side-stepping and slow-paced practice hits for tennis players, or jogging for runners.

Cool-down Guidelines

After you have completed your exercise routine, it is important that you cool down and allow your body to return to normal. A cool-down should consist of light physical activity and stretching.

Health Hack:  Bundle what you know you should do with something that you want to do and your success at doing both will improve.

Stretching

There are several forms of stretching: static (e.g. stretching a muscle and holding it in this position without discomfort for 10-30 seconds), ballistic (e.g., forcefully bouncing during a stretch) and dynamic (e.g., an exaggerated movement of a specific skill, such as over-striding during a warm-up for runners). Static stretching is considered the safest and most common method of stretching. Dynamic stretching is often used by athletes in preparation for an event and commonly used in the warm-up and cool-down phase of exercise. There is some controversy over the use of ballistic stretching for improvement in flexibility and it is generally not recommended.

How to Perform a Static Stretch

• A static stretch should be held at the point where you can feel the stretch butdo not experience any pain.
• Try to hold the stretch for 10-30 seconds.
• Each stretch should be performed 1-3 times.
• If you feel pain, ease back on the stretch.
• Remember not to bounce when holding the stretch.
• Incorporate stretches that target each major joint of the body.
• It is better to keep most of your static stretching for after your exercise session; that is, after your cool-down.

Additional Recovery Guidelines

Here are a few more tips to help you with cooling down after exercising:

• Drink plenty of fluids, particularly water, after you have completed an
  exercise routine.
• If you need to eat immediately after you exercise, try a light snack.
  Your body will have difficulty digesting a heavy meal right after exercise.
• If you have been injured during an exercise bout, seek medical attention.
• Following the guidelines on this and the previous screens will enable you to complete your exercise program safely and effectively and reduce your chance of injury.

Good luck and get moving!

You have reached the end of Module 4. Please complete the Assessment.

References

Page, P. (2012). Current concepts in muscle stretching for exercise and rehabilitation. International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 7(1), 109-199.

Small, K., Mc Naughton, L., & Matthews, M. (2008). A systematic review into the efficacy of static stretching as part of a warm-up for the prevention of exercise-related injury.

Research in Sports Medicine, 16(3), 213-231.