Senior Physiotherapist at Queensland Health’s Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service, Cheryl Costello has reminded the community that it’s time to start putting their New Year’s resolutions into practice.
Ms Costello said she was especially targeting those who had decided to get their bodies back into shape.
“If your New Year’s resolution is to increase or improve your fitness, strength training is a great place to start,” Ms Costello said.
“Regular strength or resistance training is very low risk, especially if guided by a health or fitness industry professional,” she said.
Ms Costello said increasing strength improved health at cellular, metabolic, cardiovascular and neurological levels by increasing energy levels and improving sleep, as well as reducing inflammation, stress and illness.
“Increased strength also gives you greater power, balance, agility, speed, endurance and flexibility,” she said.
The Senior Physiotherapist said strength training relied on the principle of progressive overload, which was a steady increase in training stress.
“To continue to get stronger, we must continue to increase the exertion of the exercises we do,” she said.
“Increasing exertion could mean you increase the weight, but it could also mean you maintain the weight and up the number of repetitions or sets during the workout.”
Ms Costello said essentially, it was about finding what worked for each individual —“listen to what your body is telling you on the day and adjust accordingly”.
