Exercising has many benefits both for the body to maintain cardiovascular health, maintain weight, maintain muscle strength and also have a positive psychological effect. But before exercise it is necessary to do with the right preparation so that we can get the benefits of exercise but also stay safe.
Medical Conditions Before Exercising
Before starting to exercise, it is important to note whether you have any special medical conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, or a history of special injuries? If yes and you are just starting to exercise, you should first consult a doctor to find out your risk profile, and can adjust the exercise you do according to your abilities and physical safety.
As in obese patients, a good choice of exercise is one that is low-impact so that it does not burden the joints, such as swimming, cycling, or other types of exercise such as yoga, pilates and taichi. Meanwhile, if the patient has a history of heart disease, the doctor will assess the intensity of the exercise by measuring the maximum safe range of heart rate when the patient does physical exercise.
Previous Exercise Routine
If you’ve never exercised regularly before or have been exercising but have been inactive for 6 months, it’s best to start exercising gradually. Because your body needs adjustment / conditioning before doing strenuous activities, so start at a light intensity and slowly increase it. Allowing your body to adapt first will help you avoid various risks of injury.
In addition, do the right exercise steps, namely by warming up, core training and cooling down, and giving the body enough time to rest so that a good recovery occurs after exercising.
Do The Right Type Of Exercise
There are various types of physical exercise that can be done from aerobic/cardio type, weight training/strength training, and flexibility training. In principle, these three types of exercise are needed in order to achieve maximum body fitness, so don’t just do one type of exercise.
But you can adjust the portion of your workout according. The variety and intensity of the exercise performed to achieve a leaner body and to achieve a more muscular body is certainly different. Therefore, if you want to adjust your physical exercise properly, you can ask for professional help such as a sports medicine specialist or with the help of a certified trainer.
Maintain Hydration Before, During and After Exercise
When we exercise the body will lose fluids through sweat. Therefore, before exercising, make sure you are consuming adequate water. And when exercising, keep drinking water even if you don’t feel too thirsty, especially if you exercise in a hot and scorching place.
The amount of fluid you need to consume varies depending on the type of exercise, the length of the exercise and the place of exercise. But basically if you are going to do strenuous physical exercise, try to drink about 500 ml of water about 2 hours before training, then while practicing drink water little but often as much as 400-1000 ml of water every hour of exercise, and after you finish training drink extra 250 ml of water in 30 minutes.
Adequate Nutrition for Sports Activities
Nutrition is an important component in achieving physical fitness. Exercising without good nutrition will disturb the balance of metabolism and hormones, especially in children or adolescents in their growth period.
Some female adolescent athletes may even experience the female athlete triad, in which there is a condition of low energy, menstrual disorders, and bone density disorders due to excessive exercise intensity without adequate nutrition. Likewise with men who want to build body muscles by exercising, if nutritional intake is not sufficient, it is not your muscles that are formed but your energy needs will instead take energy from the breakdown of muscles.
Wear the Right Sports Equipment
Good exercise requires proper exercise equipment. Use sports clothes and shoes and other sports equipment that suits the type of exercise you will be doing. Using the right tools not only provides comfort, but also supports performance and reduces the chance of injury. For example, if you use sneakers to play football on the grass, of course it will be more slippery and you can fall.