With the beautiful weather in Oakville and Halton over the weekend and into this week, many people start to think about lacing up their running shoes and getting out walking, cycling, running and hiking.

Exercising outside is an amazing way to unplug, unwind and reap the carry over into our function, sleep, and cardiovascular fitness.

When we feel good getting out there it can be easy to “do too much too soon”. This can be a problem if it prevents us from continuing to be active. This may be due to injury or delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) for a few days after new activity.

It is helpful to stay generally active indoor (or outdoors) over the winter season for our general health and wellness, but also so it will not be such a shock to the system ramping up all at once.

Our body is resilient. It is made to recover and repair. We can help support this by gradually and progressively loading the system.

Variables that we can Modify in Cardiovascular Activity:

• Time
• Distance
• Speed
• Surface
• Incline
• Rest days

It is best to have a general idea of where you are in terms of your fitness and work around that. I always suggest to people they start of more gently than they think and progress from there.

If you do not have time for a long session that’s no problem. One of the other variables can be modified. You do not have to exercise at maximal intensity each session to benefit from the work.

Your Oakville Physiotherapist from Palermo Physio can chat with you and help create a plan that is reasonable for you. The important thing is that a variety of exercise is part of your lifestyle. This includes both cardiovascular (run, walk, hike, bike, swim, row) and strengthening (weights / resistance training).