Creating an exercise plan that’s easy to stick to is all about making it part of your daily routine without feeling overwhelmed. The key is to set realistic goals that fit into your schedule so that staying active becomes something you want to do. Here’s how to build a plan that lasts:
1. Start with What You Enjoy
Choose activities you like. Whether walking, dancing, or swimming, you’re more likely to stick with it if you enjoy it. Your fitness plan should match your interests, not someone else’s.
2. Set Small, Achievable Goals
Set manageable goals, like working out for 15 minutes three times a week. As you get into the habit, you can gradually increase the time. Small wins help keep you motivated.
3. Build Exercise into Your Routine
Add exercise to your daily routine, just like any critical task. Schedule it, set reminders, and make it part of your day. Consistency is the key to making exercise a habit.
4. Mix It Up
Variety keeps things exciting. Mix different types of exercises, such as strength training, cardio, or even hiking. This keeps your routine fun and challenges different muscles.
5. Listen to Your Body
Pay attention to your body. If you’re feeling pain or extreme tiredness, take a break. Rest is just as important as exercise. Don’t overdo it, or you risk injury.
6. Track Your Progress
Track your workouts to see how far you’ve come. Whether through a journal or fitness app, tracking progress motivates you and helps you adjust your plan if needed.
Final Thoughts
Making exercise a habit is about finding a routine that fits your life. Start small, stay consistent, and celebrate your progress. With time, exercise won’t feel like a chore—it will become something you enjoy and look forward to!
Muscle Weakness Significantly Contributes to Lumbar Disc Herniation
Often times when people have a disc injury in their lower back (which is the most common type of lower back injury), they feel like they must have moved wrong or lifted something improperly. The reality and research show that the process of injury started long before the pain ever began. A major factor that leads to lumbar disc injury is the weakening and fatty infiltration of the group of muscles that stabilize the lumbar spine – the multifidus muscle group. Researchers showed a significant increase in the amount and degree of fatty degeneration (weakening) of the multifidus muscles in people that were suffering from painful lumbar disc herniations.
Chiropractic care has a really good track record of helping to calm down and alleviate back pain related to disc herniations with spinal manipulation, distraction or decompression, and stretches to reduce disc pressure. Once the pain is improving or gone, we need to take the next step in realizing how we got to the point of injury. Using research like this study helps us understand that if we add core stability exercises like we routinely prescribe for our patients, we can reverse the muscle weakness that led to the instability injury of a disc herniation in the first place.
Wang B, Xu L, Teng P, Nie L, Yue H. The effect of lumbar multifidus muscle degeneration on upper lumbar disc herniation. Front Surg. 2024 Nov 12;11:1323939. doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2024.1323939. PMID: 39600535; PMCID: PMC11588698.
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