This Guest Post is from one of my favourite fellow CANADIAN fitbloggers: the fantastic Morgan of Life After Bagels. In Morgan’s great post she shares with us her secrets for staying healthy and active despite having chronic knee pain.
If you would like to guest post, then check out my guidelines here.
Hello Fitness Cheerleader fans!
My name is Morgan and I blog at Life After Bagels. I’ve never run a marathon, half mary, 10k, 5k . . . okay I’ve never completed a race at all. I rarely go to fitness classes. I take the stairs or escalator at all times possible. You might be wondering how exactly I ended up guest posting for Janice. Well I do love fitness and love working out. I just have to do it my way, and I’m okay with that.
When I was a teenager I was very cruel to my body. The result of that has been chronic joint pain for many many years. That’s why I can’t run more than a kilometer or two and why I have to limit how often I take stairs. The worst is my knees and my hips so I choose ways to workout that offer the lowest impact for my lower body.
Here are my favourite workouts:
- WEIGHTS – yup I love em, especially for my upper body. I get all “pumping iron” style at the gym and make really intense faces in the mirror when doing free weights. I never let the big guys intimidate me either, I know I’m working JUST as hard as they are.
- Weights!
- CYCLING – Ohhhhh I love it. I can’t think of a better low impact workout that still builds me some leg muscles. By the way, my bike’s name is Jason Bourne because of my extreme love of Matt Damon.
Cycling!
- BOOTCAMP – this is new, and still totally scary to me. I did one month in September and am starting another month in February. The reason I never did a boot camp class before is because of the squats and lunges. My instructor was totally accommodating and gave me lots of alternative exercises that wouldn’t hurt my knees or hips.
My point is that there are so many MANY ways to get moving no matter what your restrictions are. The more dedicated I am to my workout plan, the less pain I have. I couldn’t EVER imagine my life without fitness.
Forward to a friend
Twitter: Kodjoworkout
says:
Morgan,
When you mentioned that you were cruel to your body as a teenager, can you expand on that a little? Does it mean: (A) you didn’t work out as much, and as a result you turned out overweight, which impacted your knees and hips; or (B) you over-worked out and consequently suffered from workout-related injuries. If it’s the latter, what kind of workout routines were you doing?
Cheers!
We appreciate your writing on Janice’s blog by the way. You did well
Kodjo
Kodjo recently posted..Natural Viagra: Foods that Boost Libido – Part 3
Well, I would prefer to play Wii to burn up some calories. But your tips how to do pain free workouts are really good and effective.
Jake recently posted..Sensa Review
The idea that there are a limited number of workout styles that are effective is very misleading. The fact is there are thousands of ways to stay active – many of which are fun. We think we must run or go to a gym to get and stay fit. Your article breaks this pattern of thinking … you were forced to get creative with getting and staying fit.
Steven Bancroft recently posted..Horizon Fitness CE92 Elliptical Trainer Review
hooray! i love morgan! these are great suggestions – i have definitely learned the hard way to listen to my body and not to “work through” real pain. doms – yes push through. injury-like pain – stop!
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