The Biggest Reason to Stay in Shape May Surprise You!

The emphasis for most fitness articles, blogs, professionals, and television spokes-people with bad hairstyles is getting in shape.  They are forever showing pictures of normally attractive, but overweight men, women and children in the most unflattering clothing, poses and situations next to photos of, in theory, the same people ripped out of their minds standing next to supermodels on private yachts.  It is as if these people lost 20 pounds and were immediate showered with cash and became the most popular people at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition photo shoot.

But very rarely does anyone talk about the importance of staying in shape.  

Let's be clear.  Staying in shape is important for your heart health, cholesterol levels and all of those critical things.  But the other thing staying in shape does is help prevent injury!  And I am talking about really fun injuries like ruptured ligaments, sprained ankles and pulled muscles.  These are all things that can take you out of work, out of sports and out of day to day life for a very long time and are also quite expensive!

What does staying in shape have to do with this?  I will tell you!  When a person is out of shape and overweight, their body gets used to moving a certain way.  Over the years the body has learned its limitations and moves appropriately.  As a person starts to get in better shape, the body starts to move more efficiently.  It can run faster, move more quickly, lift more weight and do things it never used to do.  These abilities start to happen gradually as progress is made.

When a person stops working out, eating correctly, running or otherwise, gets out of shape, it can happen very quickly.  In two to three weeks of inactivity a person can lose virtually all the work they did.  However, the memo does not get to the body right away.  It will still try to move as if the person were still in shape.  So when a person tries to round second base and accelerate toward third, they can pull a hamstring, or when cutting to get to a soccer ball can rupture an ACL or sprain an ankle stepping off a curb.

So do yourself a favor.  Get your butt in shape, and stay there!  Give your body a fighting chance to stay in-tact and help you do the things you want to do.  For more information on getting and STAYING in shape contact tom@canyonptandf.com or duebersports.com.