Putting together an effective strength and condition program takes a significant amount of work. You’re essentially working double-time to work through two programs at the same time. With help from Fog City Fitness, you can get tips from a certified strength and condition specialist in San Francisco to create the best plan to achieve your goals.
Make sure you warm up AND cool down
Nothing will have a greater impact on your ability to attain your goals than sustaining an injury during a workout. You’ll end up missing days worth of workouts that cut into your gains and halt your progress. A proper warm-up and cool-down can go a long way toward preventing injuries that half your progress. While you probably want to get started with your exercise right away, spending five to 10 minutes walking on a treadmill is usually enough to warm up your body before a workout. Stretching after is essential to prevent your muscles from tightening up too much after your workout.
Focus on form
Regardless of what kind of exercise you’re doing, form is essential to increasing strength and avoiding injury. Correct form not only isolates the muscles as they should be in a lift or a plyometric exercise, but it allows your body to brace itself against the resistance of the load you’re moving. If you have to drop your weight in a lift or reduce your intensity in plyometrics, it’s far better than pushing yourself too hard and risking injury.
Set goals
You always need something to work toward. Setting goals helps to motivate you toward a benchmark in your progress and makes it easier to track your progress as you go. What you set goals for yourself, it’s also important to make sure you’re pushing yourself in your efforts. You can just as easily set goals that you’ll achieve without putting in extra effort, but there won’t be any satisfaction when you reach them.
Progression should be slow
It’s not uncommon to start a new program and want to see positive results within the first few days. You might feel stronger or faster early, but the results you want will take time to achieve. Be patient with yourself and your results. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither were you.
Track your progress
Keep track of the work you’re putting in so you can see the progress you’re making. Not only does the positivity help to motivate you, but it can also help to ensure you’re not digressing in the weights you’re lifting, and the intensity you’re reaching is where you want to be.
Take time to recover
Taking time off from lifting is a crucial part of helping your body rebuild muscle fibers. Again, taking time to recover will help to prevent injuries. While you probably won’t want to take a full day off to recover when you’re feeling sore, you can always take a day to stretch or do a light workout to keep your routine.
If you feel that your program is pushing you too hard and you have more days where it’s difficult to get moving, spend more time stretching and cooling down after your main workout.
Book a consultation to start
If you’d like to learn more about improving your strength and conditioning, get in touch with us at Fog City Fitness. You can meet with a certified strength and conditioning specialist in San Francisco to get assistance setting up a program that works for you and will help you achieve your goals. Call 415-602-2777 or send a message using our online contact form.
