The Change
I make no bones about it, Leg Day is probably one of my favourite days if not my favourite day in the gym. I always feel great after Leg Day, sore, exhausted, yet energised, it gives me a sense of well being. I don't know why but it really does change my mood, of all the days to train, whenever I train legs I find myself in almost a state of
euphoria even though the metal plate in my ankle aches with each rep of each set, its almost as if it is a challenge to push harder and since I love a good
challenge, I always do.
Today I challenged myself in a good way, I kept my squats to a lower weight then usual and focused more on form then on weight. 5 sets of 10 reps, all good and healthy, not really a challenge for my weight, but the challenge was keeping proper form. Helping to avoid injury with my lower back and knee's by performing each squat carefully and ensuring my posture and form were correct. That has been my goal.
Like the
squats I continued to pursue better form for all my Leg Day exercises, thus avoiding injury.
Hamstring Curls,
Leg Extensions,
Leg Press, all of them were better than normal. Maintaining proper body position on the equipment helps keep my joints safe or so I am told and that is my new goal. To keep myself healthy and improve my overall lifestyle.
In the past I've been
reckless with my exercises and lately I've been focusing more and more on avoiding injury because I just had a feeling it was coming if I kept training the way I did. So I am quite glad I made this decision to improve my training methods by avoiding exercising in ways that could lead to injury. So lowering the weight and performing my exercises under better control and with proper posture and form I feel has ultimately helped me avoid injury but in the long run will help me be able to go heavier and keep myself healthier.
The Result
The result of the changes above are quite simple, less injury, longer training times, slower improvements, but again, less injury, or chance of injury. By removing or lowering the chance of injury I feel that I am actually making it easier and faster to train, because if I injure myself I won't be able to train, and if I can't train I won't be able to improve. So its a better scenario, a winning scenario I feel.
I cannot fathom why it took me so long to adjust to this safer style of training, maybe it was because I was in a hurry to lose weight, or maybe its because I was simply ill informed of what could happen, but the more I look into my health and fitness.
The more I read about training habits and appropriate ways to train and how to train, the more I realize I have been putting myself in a lot of danger and risk of injury. So after today's exercise being the first with this new training methodology I have to say I will adopt this into the rest of my training.
I feel better, but I know it will be the right way. I will continue to research and train based on what I've read and keeping myself healthy first, focused on prevention of injury followed by loss of weight, and third building a nice body and form. I've got a lifetime to train, so I am going to train properly and take my time and stop rushing for gains and success. I'll get where I want to be!.
