08/12/2022

Good frosty and cold December morning to you. New Years resolutions are likely not at the fore front of your mind just yet but, if you are starting to consider resuming or increasing some form of activity in January, then hopefully this blog can give you some guidance. 

Firstly, it’s not uncommon for us to have people attend the clinic with something sore in late January or February. This scenario usually occurs after the good intentions and motivation to hit the targets of the New Years resolution, have been a bit too much. So, what can you do?

Reflect on the Past

Before making the plan for your New Years Resolution, spend some time thinking back on times when you successfully implemented a change in your lifestyle or when you tried but it didn’t work out. The examples may not relate to activity or exercise. It could have been a change to diet, sleep or relationships with others. When reflecting on these experiences, you might take into account:

• What helped you at the time to start the plan? Perhaps you and a friend or family member were making the change together. Perhaps you felt ready to act on advice or motivation to improve something. It may have been something else or a mix of factors, either way see if you can identify what helped and aim to use similar strategies this time.  

• What helped you to sustain the plan? It’s quite normal to hit bumps in the road with a new habit. Perhaps you missed a planned day of exercise because of tiredness, illness or additional demands. Perhaps you didn’t quite stick to your calorie count on occasion because of a birthday or other celebration. For me, these types of scenarios are completely understandable and reasonable. Hopefully you got back on track. Perhaps with some encouragement from somebody who was in it with you, or recognising that the circumstances were against you, accepting it and planning for a way to overcome a similar situation in the future. Of course, there will be many other ways you stuck with the plan.

• What would you do differently next time? Perhaps at time the plan itself was too demanding. There’s nothing wrong with seeing that and identifying how you noticed it in yourself. Perhaps the goals were too easy or more likely too challenging. The latter is very normal, I feel as motivation often pushes us to set high targets. Next time, when you set your long-term goals, you might include short-term goals that are attainable and build towards the end result. 

Think about the Present

I believe it’s also critical to appraise your current circumstances when you are committing to a new habit. A new exercise or activity will have time and energy demands. I would strongly consider and even write down what your current non-negotiable demands are, and then identify how much time you can reasonably commit. It is more difficult to estimate the energy and recovery demands until you start, and perhaps that’s where you modify what you’re doing. Nonetheless, write down how many times a week and for how long you will engage in the exercise. This will give you a total weekly time which you can then look to change accordingly. 

It may also be worth taking into account any other changes that are expected as you start a new exercise/activity regime. Are there work deadlines? Perhaps you’re moving house or starting a new job even. I think it’s worth keeping in mind that these are all things that we have to adapt too, and lots of change can be challenging and often less successful.  

Lastly, you may already be undertaking other exercise or activity. It’s important to factor in how the new activity could impact this. It could be complimentary and at the same time detract from your current activity. For example, if you’re a runner and you would like to increase your speed or endurance you may decide to do a gym programme. While the gym work will improve power and/or endurance, in the short-term it comes at a cost of greater fatigue, therefore the need for greater recovery time. This would often mean a reduction in running duration or frequency. There could be many other examples of course, so take some time to consider if you may need to sacrifice some aspects of your current exercise to accommodate something new. 

Planning & Goal Setting

The way this blog has worked out, it has almost become an analogy for Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” with us looking at the past, then present and now the future as we see how best to plan the New Year’s Resolution. 

In the clinic, the main issues that I often see derailing a New Year’s Resolution exercise plan are that the long-term goal is set with high motivation and consequently some unrealistic expectations of how quickly the body can adapt to the demands of the exercise. That is to say we try to push too hard, too quickly. So how can you set more realistic and attainable goals? Having reflected on past experiences and consider your current demands you are in a good place to make better judgements on what will work. 

Firstly, be aware that if your starting pointing is low (no exercise) and your goal is relatively high (cycling 80km twice a week), then your body will need more time to adapt, therefore you should allow it to be a slower process. The opposite is also true that if your starting point is high (cycling 50km twice a week) and you want to go higher (cycling 80km twice a week), then it’s clear the adaptation for your body will be quicker and you can likely tolerate a greater weekly increase more easily. To follow this example through, if you’re doing 50km twice a week and then increase by 5km to 55km twice a week, it is a 10% change. Whereas if you are starting off at 5km twice a week and in the second week you go to 10km, it is a 100% increase. Granted the figures are lower in general and most people would be able to tolerate this change, if you were to continue at the same rate of increase there is a risk of problems developing. 

My recommendation then would be to start with less than you think you would be able for and reevaluate after a short period of time. For example, if you are aiming to do a general strengthening programme in the gym for the whole body, you could start with:

• 3 non-consecutive days a week 
• doing 2-3 exercises for the upper body and lower body 
• with low weight and higher reps (15-20 to mild fatigue) for 2 sets. 

Ideally stay at the same level for 2-3 sessions and check in how you are doing in the 24-48 hours after the session on tiredness levels, general ache or soreness from exercise, mood and the duration for recovery of these factors. If you notice all are mild or absent or improving, then you could increase 1 or 2 aspects, such as the weight or the number of sets or the number of exercises. Stay at that new level for 2-3 sessions before reevaluating again and hopefully increasing. I think it is very important to:

1. Stay at the same level for 2-3 sessions before increasing the challenge
2. Reevaluate how your body is responding before deciding on whether you should increase the challenge and then increase by small percentages in some areas rather than multiple

The more you engage with reevaluating how the plan is going, the more it will become intuitive for you. 

The final consideration, in my view, when making you plan is to factor in sufficient recovery time and dietary changes. For recovery time, the quality and duration of your sleep is critical. Similarly, it is important that you have day(s) after your exercise with lower physical demand. Try to factor this into your life as much as possible. When it comes to diet, bear in mind that you will be expending more energy during your activity and your body will need more fuel to recover and help build the necessary changes you are seeking. You will likely need to increase certain food groups such as proteins, carbohydrates fruit and veg to help you to recover optimally.

I recognise there I am suggesting you take a lot of different aspects into account and this can be challenging. I firmly believe that the time you spend engaging in this thinking and planning beforehand and during the initial phases will benefit you in sustaining the activity and remaining injury free. 

Similar to getting a qualification, learning a language or to drive, it takes time for our body to adapt to new exercise demands. Do your best to give it that time. Slow and steady wins the race!

Till the next blog, stay active and stay well!

Lonan Hughes

Chartered Physiotherapist