The question of being conditioned enough to exercise sounds odd. But I’ve had enough injured people come through my door that I thought this would be a good topic.
The real question is how do I start a new exercise routine. In a word or two, go slow.
Non-strength bearing exercise should involve the same group of muscles that you strengthened through weight training. Otherwise your expecting strength and endurance from a muscle that hasn’t been conditioned. Think about it. Exercise accomplishes what the name says it moves or exercises the muscle or muscle group but does not condition it. Sure, oxygen-carrying blood floods the muscle. But if the muscle hasn’t been forced to grow, producing new cells or splitting old ones, it is not going to be able to utilize all that healthy blood. Hmm, kind of like water off a ducks back.
If exercise alone made muscles stronger then we would all have super strong muscles from all those repetitive movements we do every day. Getting in and out of the car, hey, lifting a coffee mug would really be a conditioner. But you have to start somewhere and that place should be making the muscle stronger. With resistance training.
Getting the picture.
The rowing machine works all twelve major muscle groups. However if your new job is changing tires the rowing machine has it’s limits. You might strengthen muscles of the chest, back, arms and core with free weights or several stations on a machine.
Okay back on topic.
In the old days injuries came from lifting that davenport, spare tire or whatever, which just happened to weigh more than your muscles were conditioned for. Things have changed. These days I see people that become injured by exercise and in some cases strength training. Body position should determine the amount of resistance. Remember high school science? The Can of coke weighs less against your chest then at arms length. Well, the weight is the same but the muscles involved differ. So consider that when you twist around like a pretzel you may want to regulate the resistance appropriately. Keep in mind that all that twisting does not grow new muscles cells or split the old ones or make the muscle any more receptive to all that healthy blood.
Remember that maybe if you workout everything else will too.
