Welcome back to this week’s edition of 2-Minute Tuesdays where we are talking about one exercise topic for two minutes and giving you three reasons why you should follow our advice. Now this week, we are talking to those of you who may have had a little bit too much fun this past weekend. What things do you need to make sure of with your exercise for this upcoming week to ensure that your exercise boosts your health and doesn’t continue to break it down?
1) Use Your Workouts To Boost Your Health
Exercise Tip Number One If You Had A Party Weekend: Use exercise to boost your health. Workouts are often thought about as activities that need to break down your body, but they can actually be used to boost your body. Do activities that make you feel energized and invigorated. Getting your blood flowing can be tremendously helpful in getting you to recover back to your normal.
Action Step: Do NOT skip your workouts this week. Get in some light activity, such as going for a light jog or bike ride, to get your heart pumping, your muscles squeezing, and your body moving again.
Related: Are you moving enough each day?
2) Do Not Use Exercise As A Punishment
Exercise Tip Number Two If You Had A Party Weekend: Do not use exercise as a punishment for your body. Your body is already stressed enough from the weekend. Don’t look at your workout as repentance from your weekend activities, but rather as an opportunity to nudge your health back on course.
Action Step: Approach your workout with the mindset of improving your health instead of “burning off the extra calories”. The former will help ensure that you are able to keep exercising for the long haul and continue to receive the health-promoting benefits of exercise.
Related: Short on time? Here’s how to exercise!
3) Use The Rule Of 50%
Exercise Tip Number Three If You Had A Party Weekend: Use the rule of 50%. Do the workouts you normally do, but cut the volume, speed, load, and/or intensity by 50% of what you normally do. This will serve as a boost to your system and will lower the risk that you stress your body too much if you are depleted.
Action Step: Go through your regularly-scheduled workouts as planned, but cut the volume by 50%. Instead of doing two sets of an exercise, do one. Instead of running for an hour, run for 30 minutes. Do half of the workout you would normally do and feel your body start to come back to normal as you use your exercise to stimulate your body without over-doing it.