Staying Fit: Three things I wish I knew sooner about fitness

In retrospect, we all wish we could have done some things differently. Powered by present knowledge, we wish we had acted differently, for reasons aplenty. That moment you realise everything’s on sale now in a store where you bought your shirt full price barely a week ago… if you only knew. The same holds true in fitness, and although experience is the best teacher, some unnecessary inconveniences could have been avoided if you only knew what you know today.

Here are three drops of wisdom I want to share with you to make your journey in fitness a bit smoother.

Don’t go hard all the time

I got introduced to fitness seeing “Go hard or go home” written in posters and hearing it paraphrased in various ways by trainers and in the workout environment itself. Well, turns out it isn’t entirely applicable every time. And it should not be. Whether we differ in understanding and programme or not, there’s a caveat to that philosophy. Otherwise, ‘light’, ‘moderate’, ‘interval’ and the like wouldn’t exist in the fitness vocabulary.

The key for longevity is safety and going hard all the time diminishes your natural capacity to always be safe. I found this the hard way, pun intended, when I injured my rotator cuffs a few years back. To this day, I remember the instances when I pushed hard and overused my RCs. They haven’t been the same and I now feel impingement on both my shoulders, which recur every now and then. Though I am still able to function well regardless, I haven’t felt like they’re 100 per cent in a long time, thanks in part to a misguided pursuit of a superficially simple declaration.

Ask ‘how’ and ‘why’.

Early into my fitness years, I followed training programmes from bodybuilding magazines and websites. The readily available information was for the broader population, not taking into account individual mobility, flexibility and other limitations. What they taught me back then was ‘what’ to do — I was left to follow pictures for the ‘how’, and more often than not, they fed me with exercises without really telling me ‘why’.

We should be able to justify all the exercises we’re currently doing and they should serve to get us closer to our goals — be it strength, speed, etc. And when exercising, focus more on correct body mechanics to make the exercise work for you. For example, there is a huge difference between a hastily done single chest press and a controlled slow tempo single chest press. With appropriate repetitions for the latter, muscle stimulation is multiplied. Quite simply, it’s not so much about the weight you are moving, rather, how you are moving them.

Popcorn for life

If you’ve ever tried going on a strict diet for months, then you know how miserable it feels. I acknowledge and remember the tremendous results, yes, but I also remember how I became a hermit, evading a social life for fear of ruining my diet. And it killed me, not being able to gorge on popcorn and soda in the cinema! Clean 24/7, I took it to the extreme and thought it was the only way. It’s not. It’s perfectly fine to indulge, just don’t overdo it.

Enjoy scheduled cheat meals as long as you’re eating clean for most of the week. Indulgence keeps you sane, it’s beneficial to your psyche. There are people who eat clean the whole year round. They truly do exist, kudos to them! But for me, and maybe for you, pure joy is a balancing act that’s worth the extra calories to burn.