2015 was a great starting year for my fitness and heath so I’m really looking forward to seeing how 2016 goes!
I’m already anticipating a few new topics now that I’ve sort of gotten past the initial beginner stage:
- Injuries and rehab
- Injury prevention
- Learning new, more advanced/refined techniques
- Mental health and preparedness
- Healthy eating (yay, food!)
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It’s pretty important to know what sort of injuries can happen in any sport or activity that you go into, especially when it’s endurance sports like long-distance running and rock climbing.
It’s pretty obvious that rock climbing and parkour can lead to some really serious injuries, but there’s less extreme but way more common injuries in all three sports like strained tendons, plantar fasciitis, shin splints, tendonitis, micro-tears, sprains, etc.
These common injuries definitely won’t land me (and you) in the hospital right away, but it could very likely lead to more permanent health issues in the future.
In general, it’s better to know what’s the most likely injury to come from any particular activity and learn which techniques are needed to prevent or minimize the risk of injury. For example, there’s a bunch of stretching techniques that can prevent shin splints, like the ones outlined here in Runner’s World.
Since I’m going to be ramping up my mileage quite a bit, I’ll be studying a lot of injury prevention techniques and putting away some money for some physio and massage therapy!
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Compared to rock climbing and parkour, running doesn’t have as many performance techniques to learn since it’s highly dependent on the runner’s individual gait and physiology.
But, I’d like to learn how to do more strength techniques for rock climbing since I’m shorter than the average rock climber and I need more power to go further up. I don’t think I’m not bad a traverses, though.
I’m also a woman, which apparently puts me at a disadvantage due to the way routes are set. (Seriously. I’ll discuss this in a later blog post.)
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As the distances get longer, it’s harder to get out the door to go for a run!
So far, I’ve only had bad issues going out to run in super hot and humid weather, which is something Toronto is prone to getting in the dead of summer. It’s such a huge challenge to get out there because I really have to persuade myself that the dread is all in my mind. I don’t mind winter training too much because I have a track membership at a stadium that’s quite friendly!
I want to be more aware of how my mental state affects my physical activity, especially during climbing since it demands a good amount of problem solving skills.
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Last, but certainly not least, I want to share more of my thoughts about food, nutrition and fitness with everyone!
These may be my most challenging posts since I’m very invested in the healthy food sector and I’m very passionate about presenting the most accurate, evidence-based science I can, especially since there’s so much pseudo-science in popular media.
I’m considering making a separate blog to post about food and nutrition issues and simply copying them to this blog soon after. If I do, I’ll make sure to post the name and link!
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If you’ve noticed, I haven’t put any solid numbers into this part of my 2016 Fitness Goals.
I don’t want to HAVE to learn a new technique every week because I’d much rather focus on my progress than having to force a new technique so often. Besides, it’s better to learn a couple of techniques and master them (somewhat) before learning more, right?
Also, these aren’t resolutions just for the first half of 2016. I want to make this something that I’ll do for the whole year, next year and beyond!
Hope I’ll be able to look back on this and see that I’ve hit all of my goals!
Did you make any resolutions? How are they coming along?
xoxo,
B.elle
Cafe Lilium 