Take your Rest Days!

Little and often as the saying goes..

I have taken up Pilates this year for the first time ever, and was able to self-heal my knee through changing my exercise regime from running to strength training and pilates.

My body has completely changed through Pilates workouts and can see and feel the benefits. I also enjoy the new skills I learn and piece of mind I get from it, knowing that I am benefitting my body through strength building and flexibility.

However, as a Personal Trainer you are always working out and performing exercises with clients and in recent, have not been taking proper rest days and my body has taken the brunt of this. I would like to think that my body will machine through but it doesn't and we need to have rest days. this month I did not listen to my body when it said it was tired and have caused myself an injury through too much exercise, even if this was in the form of Pilates.

A small niggle in my left hip has now turned into an on-going sometimes extremely painful area. As soon as I was aware that this was actually a real injury and not just muscle soreness, I booked in with my physio, Anne-Marie, Harmony Physiotherapy. She was amazing and through some simple movements was able to diagnose the problem, being excessive use of my hip extensors which has caused a hip impingement to my left side. Rest on the hip extensors, supine clams and foam rolling was the remedy.

I have had to dedicate time daily to heal myself and already feeling improvements.

This blog was to remind all you gym goers or exercise enthusiasts out there, that you need your rest days or it will only end in injury, aches and pains. I also can’t stress enough the importance of booking in with a physio from time to time, even if you don’t have an injury, to just check in with your body, find out your strong and weak points as no matter how skilled you are in movements, we can all improve.