One of the key ingredients to maintaining your fitness is being consistent in your exercise. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that those people who maintain a regular exercise routine all year round are the most likely to retain their fitness as they get older and the least likely to have changes in their weight.

One of the keys to being able to exercise consistently is to stay well and injury-free. Nothing is more frustrating to a regular exerciser than to be restricted by an injury. The rest of your body and your heart is saying move, but your injury and head is saying you have to rest. It can cause people to get irritable and mess with their body and brain chemistry.

With that in mind, here are some tips to stay injury free.

Don’t go flat out with enthusiasm

If you’re just getting back into exercise or doing an activity that you haven’t done for a while, don’t go as hard as you can or as hard as you used to. It takes a couple of sessions for the nerves, muscles and blood vessels to remember what is required. Go a bit easy for a couple of sessions and increase the amount and intensity gradually. How long this takes will depend upon how long since you’ve done this activity and your general level of fitness. It doesn’t have to take months. The body will adapt within weeks.

Warm up and cool down properly

The blood supply takes a little while to catch up when you start exercising so you don’t want to fatigue the muscles unnecessarily at the start. Start slowly and increase your activity level gradually. This gives the heart, lungs and blood vessels a chance to supply enough oxygen and remove carbon dioxide.

Vary what you do

Many injuries are caused by overuse – doing the same exercise every day. Ideally muscles have a day’s rest before being called upon again. This is especially the case for impact activities like running.

Giving the muscles a time to recover before they are used again does not mean you have to do nothing. Ideally you would exercise every day but not do the same activity two days running. Even sports such as cycling and swimming, where there is minimal impact can result in overuse injury. Alternate activities so you are using different muscles or at least different actions during the week.

Go harder rather than go longer

Most adults don’t exercise hard enough to get the most benefit from the time they spend. As a result, they do more, thinking that more is the answer. Doing more at a slow pace doesn’t necessarily make you fitter and increases your chance of overuse injuries like stress fractures, stiff or sore joints and muscles, and inflamed tendons and ligaments. If getting fitter or staying fit in the least amount of time is your aim, then go harder not longer.

Listen to your body

While I strongly recommend that you do something active every day, you need to know when to back off. Hold off on exercise when you’re sick or feeling very fatigued. Cut back if you are struggling with an exercise session, feel faint or suffer persistent aches and pains in joints. As a general rule, if you have a cold it is usually safe to exercise, but if you have a flu or temperature it is better to rest or at least do an easy session.

Be realistic after a break from exercise

If you stop exercising for a while, drop back to a lower level of exercise initially. If you’re doing strength training, for example, lift lighter weights or do fewer reps or sets.

Drink up

For most people, simply drinking plenty of water and eating a healthy diet is sufficient. But if you’re training especially hard or doing long training sessions in preparation for an event (the only reason you should be doing long sessions!), choose drinks that replace fluids plus essential electrolytes.

Dress to impress (your body not other people)

Choose clothes and shoes designed for your type of exercise and the climate. Shoes especially can make a huge difference to your chance of injury. If you run or walk regularly, check your shoes every six months to make sure they are still providing adequate cushioning and support.

While on clothing, don’t be tempted to overdress just because the temperature has dropped a bit (in the southern hemisphere anyway). Unless it is very cold, you probably don’t want to add too many extra layers. The body doesn’t like being too hot and you’ll burn more calories if you’re a bit cool!

Always get your technique right

For strength training especially, good technique is essential. Initially use no weight, or very light weights, when learning the exercises. Never sacrifice good form by hurrying to finish reps or sets, or struggling to lift heavier weights.

Even for aerobic activities, poor technique increases your risk of injury. If in doubt, book a session with a professional coach just so they can correct any techniques problems.

Adapt to the environment

Exercising in hot, humid conditions can lead to serious overheating and dehydration. Ease up or do shorter sessions when the temperature or humidity is high. Watch for signs of overheating, such as headache, dizziness, nausea, faintness, cramps, or palpitations.

If you’re sore, wait a day

Delayed muscle soreness that starts 12 to 24 hours after a workout and gradually decreases is a normal response to taxing your muscles. In contrast, persistent or intense muscle pain that starts during a workout or right afterward, or muscle soreness that persists more than a week should be checked out by a health professional.

If you are sore from a previous activity, ease up or do something using different muscles until the soreness has gone.

You won’t get any fitter exercising sore muscles.

An longitudinal study reported in the American Journal of Health Promotion examined the effects on hospital admissions and costs of a program offering points-based incentives to members of a private health insurance scheme. In the five year study period, it found an increase in fitness activities was  associated with a lower probability of hospital admissions and lower hospital costs. Given the increasing burdens of both physical inactivity and hospital costs, perhaps all health funds should offer incentives to people to get fitter.

The  304,054 adult participants were members of the health fund.  Sixty-three percent (192,467) registered for the health promotion program offering incentives for fitness-related activities. Specifically, the program placed participants in activity categories according to their annual number of gym visits. More than 48 gym visits a year was ‘high activity’, 24-48 visits ‘medium activity’, 4-24 visits ‘low activity’ and less than 4 visits ‘inactive’. Members could also accumulate points through registration in sport events like fun runs. Participation in activities allowed members to claims discounts of 20-40% in certain retail stores. Changes in participation in fitness activities over years 1-3 was monitored and examined in comparison with subsequent costs of hospital admission in years 4 and 5, based on health insurance claims.

Over the five years, there was a significant decrease in the proportion of inactive members (76% to 68%) and the proportion of high activity members increased from 10% to 13%. Those who remained highly active in years 1–3 had a significantly lower probability (20.7%) of hospital admission in years 4 to 5, compared with those who remained inactive (22.2%).

Benefits in becoming more active were evident; Members in the inactive-to–more active group were significantly less likely to be admitted to hospital and had lower hospital claims than those in the inactive-to–no change group. Members in the active-to–no change and active-to–more active groups also claimed less and had a lower rate of hospital admissions than those in the active-to–less active group. A dose-response relationship was also discovered; the likelihood of hospital admission was 13% lower for two additional gym visits per week.

The results are quite encouraging, especially given the activity categories do not necessarily reflect optimum doses of physical activity. The ‘high activity’ category could be achieved by attending the gym less than once a week and the activities engaged in whilst at the gym are unknown.

Imagine the possible outcome if we could get people active every day!!

Bottom Line – if you want ot reduce your risk of ending up in hospital, get moving and get fitter.

If you’re giving up time and effort, you want to get the best ROEE (return on effort and energy) possible. Here’s some more tips to get the most from your exercise.

Add a few hills

Hills are a great way to build muscle on your glutes and legs, and to increase your overall metabolism.

A lot of aerobic exercise doesn’t have a lasting effect on your metabolic rate (unlike weight training), but hills are an exception to this rule if you work hard getting up them.

Either set the treadmill to an incline or find a hill somewhere convenient. You can start with fast walking to begin with, but try to include some light running as well.

One big advantage of hill running is that there is less impact on your knees and hips when you land, as you are working against gravity. Don’t get tempted to run back down the hill as this is when the joint damage is most likely to occur. Use the downhill as your recovery time and enjoy the view.

Use aerobic exercise to supplement your strength training

Long slow aerobic exercise is a very inefficient way to try and get fit, but aerobic exercise used in conjunction with strength training can make your workout more intense and produce results.

Instead of resting between sets of exercises, do some running on the spot, skipping, rowing or cycling. You don’t have to go as hard as an interval session, but obviously the faster you go the more benefit.

I recently bought a rowing machine and use it between exercise sets to boost the intensity and return from my workouts.

Focus on what you are doing

Most people use exercise to switch off and let their mind drift. It’s relaxing and not a bad thing. I certainly do that sometimes, especially when I am feeling a bit tired or have a lot going on in my head. The problem with doing this is that our body tends to cruise along at what is a comfortable pace.

If you want to get fitter or maintain your fitness, you can’t do it all the time. Some sessions each week, or parts of sessions, you need to focus on what you are doing and exercise at an intensity that pushes you out of your comfort zone. This is why intervals are good; you get to focus and go fast for short bursts then ease off and let your mind wander.

While it’s okay to drift off mentally when exercising, just don’t do it all the time or when riding a bike or running near traffic!!