An often misconception of the gym and exercising is that you always need to push yourself to the limit and finish only when you hit failure. Often saturating your social media feed is a plethora of high-intensity and overcomplicated workout ideas that often lead to burn-out and injury. We are told to find constant optimization, hustle culture is upon us, and we cannot take it easy – it’s go hard or go home. This is not the case!
A better way to train can be through low-impact movement, and more intentional training to take into consideration of your ‘long-term’ wellness. Our nervous system can only deal with so much pressure from stresses outside of working out. The stresses of life, work, societal pressures… The list goes on. So we don’t want to add even more stress with max heart rate, max strength, and max effort exercise every day.
The term ‘low-impact’ refers to mindful movement, tempo control, steady state cardio, mobility, range-of-motion focus, and breathwork. Although this isn’t often considered ‘gyming’ or ‘training’; it is the foundation that we all need for complete wellness. Implementing low-impact movement not only builds consistency because you can do it everyday without risking injury; it regulates your hormones and stimulates recovery between those intense sessions and bouts of life.
So consider pulling back if you feel fatigue; try a walk instead of a run, program a yoga/pilates/barre class into your schedule where a heavy strength session may have been. Try low impact and monitor your energy levels… it may be something you need.
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