What do chickens have to do with it?

Clinical Conditioning

My local shopping strip has changed over the last few years. There used to be lots of chicken shops – now there are a lot of boutique gyms. This style of gym allows the user to have a physical environment that they are comfortable with and usually contracts us in so we turn up frequently and have some investment.

I love that you can try for free or cheap to see if the shoe fits. Music, lighting, personalities….and of course, the exercise.

In the 1970s there was a proliferation of takeaway foods from all over the world available to average joes from cities to small towns. The current exercise culture is not unlike that – turn up and pick what you like from the menu and take home a calorie deficit or charged metabolic rate or both.

But like our relationship to nutrition, we need to craft our selection of exercise to suit our needs.

We need to find the right mix – our favourites and the ones that we know are good for us but definitely are not on the favourites list. Sometimes our old favourites need to be revived from the bottom of the barrel and we remember them and how good they are for us and how good that they feel.

Being mindful and present ‘turning up’ for ourselves is good for our health. Yes, its good to feel the muscles contract or our heart beating fast. But it is also good to focus on our rehabilitation or going through the motions that we know will prevent our next injury or help us to manage pain.

In our time short approach to life we need bang for buck with our exercises. Efficacy means that they work. Commitment means that we do them regularly. Graded means that we progress or regress to meet our current ability. We need the knowledge to have a flexible and targeted program that realises the flux we go through that links to energy, sleep, emotions and life events amongst other things. And we have to enjoy doing it.

Make sure for yourself that you have a sustainable mix and the right advice on how exercise can serve you better in being your best self – physically and mentally. Remember to be grateful for your capacity to undertake it freely and be spoilt for choice in a city and state where weather and geography facilitates variety and choice.

At Performance Medicine we work closely with the fitness industry and offer skilled advice and treatment to maximise your participation. We can arm you with exercise programs that you can call in as a part of your self management, when you need them founded on a knowledge base that grows the more that you come into the clinic.

Supervised clinical exercise is a great way for us to see your body in motion, doing both routine movements and in more challenging situations. Each session creates an opportunity for you to take home a self management tool, knowing that you understand the why and how of using it.

So, like the chicken shops, not all of the gyms will make it. It has been tough with the restrictions that we have lived with and it sometimes feels easier to keep ‘jumping up and down’ in the living room, if that is your thing. 

Don’t put off coming in to the clinic and getting some assistance to get back out there and set some goals for when we re-emerge in spring.

Chris Minto