The Male Health Center - Workout Tips

Workout tips

Develop Workout Variety
Enjoying several sports helps protect you from injury and improves your overall fitness.

Exercise is wonderful. It can ward off illness, fill you with energy, improve your sex life, and encourage a good night's sleep. But you can get too much of a good thing.

It's becoming all too common to see men—especially middle-aged men—become so obsessed with their fitness that they push themselves to the point of injury. Typically, it's a runner looking to trim a minute from his marathon, a tennis player looking for another mile per hour in his serve, or a weight lifter going for ten more pounds--a man who is pushing the limits in one sport.

Working out too long and too hard at one activity will lead almost inevitably to injury. Variety—what exercise physiologists call cross-training—is the key to safely improving your fitness. If you've been concentrating on just one sport, consider substituting one or two others in your weekly workout schedule. Cross training not only improves overall fitness while reducing the risk of injury, it also can actually help heal damage already done. Here are few options to consider:

Cross-country skiing or in-line skating: Either of these smooth aerobic sports can be good alternatives for runners and a fine aerobic option for weight lifters.
Cycling: Cycling helps develop the quadriceps while putting minimal strain on ankles and knees. That makes it a good change of pace for runners and people who do aerobics or use stair-climbing machines.
Running: Fanatical runners are some of the most injury-prone athletes, but running can be a great alternative—taken in moderation—for cyclists, skiers, in-line skaters, and rowers.
Swimming: Swimming helps add upper body strength and develop flexibility for runners, cyclists, skiers, and people who use stair-climbing machines or do aerobics. It's also an excellent low-impact aerobic activity for weight lifters.
Weight lifting: Although any weight-training program should be accompanied by aerobic activity, the opposite is also true. Lifting weights can help a swimmer develop upper-body strength, a cyclist balance out leg muscle development to fully protect knees, or a skier develop shoulder strength.

Try mixing up your weekly workout sessions, and you'll enjoy more than a reduced risk of injury. You'll also find yourself becoming better fit for a wider variety of day-to-day tasks. Cross training simply builds a better balanced body.

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