We all remember the story of the tortoise and the hare. If you haven’t, go ahead and grab a kid’s version of The Tortoise and the Hare from the Napa County Library and you’ll find out the origination of the term “slow and steady wins the race.” As an ambassador of lifetime fitness with a mission to guide my friends, family and clients to live happy and sustainable lives, I ensure to keep this theme in mind with every health and fitness lesson I promote. If we want to accomplish living a happy, healthy and strong life for the long run, we need to ensure our bodies can be productive 30 years down the line even though pain and injury might slow us down.
Moving at high speeds can mean we get more work done in a little amount of time. However, this also imposes more stress to a situation. Picture a NASCAR stock car tearing down the raceway. Sure, they move at lightning fast speeds, but they must change their tires after every race. Fortunately, those high-performance race cars moving at impressively high speeds also have pit crews ready to change those tires that have been super-heated by the track in a matter of minutes with brand new fresh tires from the shop. Wouldn’t it be nice after playing a season of recreational tennis if a pit crew showed up to our door with a brand-new elbow to replace the tennis elbow injury that developed over playing 2 nights a week of tennis in your mid 50’s? Please nod your head yes. However, the human body wasn’t designed that way. After an injury, the body will likely not perform or recover the same. Even after corrective surgery to a significant injury, it takes significant rehab and years to get return to optimal performance. With the threats of wear and tear after recreational sports, our careers, and advancement of age, our bodies will experience pain that could impede us from continuing to move and do what we enjoy. This doesn’t always have to be the case.
Luckily, there are forms of exercise that can assist us in still enjoying our hobbies and recreational physical activities. A theme that we focus on with our personal training clients in Napa is injury prevention, rehabilitation, and future proofing. A very effective mode of exercise that we implement throughout our exercise prescriptions with our personal training clients are eccentric exercises, the slow and controlled lowering movement of an exercise technique. An example of an eccentric lower body movement is an eccentric chair squat. To perform, place a chair behind the body and slowly lower the hips in a squatting movement for a count of 5 seconds until fully rested on the chair. Then squat up to the initial position. An example of eccentric movement for the upper extremity is an eccentric push up from the knees. To perform, position the body face positioning the elbows straight under the chest and the knees resting on the ground. Slowly lower the torso to the ground for a count of 5 seconds, ensuring the hips are lined up with the back and there is no curvature in the spine. When the elbows have become in line with the ribs, push yourself up to the starting position. Both exercises can be performed for 3 sets of 5 repetitions each.
A benefit of performing eccentric themed exercises is the lack of repetitions put on the body. Exercise stress is still being put on large groups of muscles, however mechanical stress on the joints are reduced. After suffering from an injury or recovering from a surgery, this low impact-low stress activity is a useful solution to keep the body moving while productively returning to an optimal state of human movement. Eccentric exercise can be perceived as “slow motion” training. Similar amounts of work will be produced, just in a slower amount of time. This slower, less stressful style of exercise will help to keep the affected joints safe, while maintaining lean muscle mass and strength as the afflicted area heals.
The idea of lifetime fitness is to keep moving happily through life. Being able to enjoy your hobbies, play sports and recreational activities with friends, and participate in social functions is what sustains us to keep living. However, pains and unexpected injuries happen all the time. We always encourage challenging exercise to keep the body healthy and strong. However, listen to the body when a pain signal says that you’ve had enough. Give the body a chance to recover while still exercising and being productive. With eccentric exercise, an individual can continue to move and return from an injury sooner if implemented correctly. Just like the tortoise and the hare, this is a long game we play in life. There are a lot of new, exciting places that we can take our bodies. You’ll get there, just don’t go too fast.
“Slow and steady wins the race.”
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
