Exercise Right this Week: Pacing vs Boom-Bust

EXERCISE RIGHT WEEK 2021 | 24-30 MAY

Exercise Right Week is an annual awareness campaign held in the last full week of May every year. Since it’s inception in 2014, the campaign has aimed to highlight the benefits of exercise for health and well-being, and to help Australians to understand where to get the “right” advice for their individual needs.

The campaign is brought to you by Exercise & Sports Science Australia (ESSA). ESSA is the peak body for exercise and sports science professionals in Australia, and is dedicated to helping Australians live healthier and more active lives.

Altaira believe exercise for the health and well being throughout the aged care sector, is imperative. Engaging a physiotherapist is often the best solution to encourage this at a level which is safe and tailored to individual residents. To help meet the needs of our community, Altaira now offer physiotherapists throughout the aged care and community sector.

Pacing vs Boom-Bust

Injuries will often occur from doing too much too soon after doing too little for too long. While we all know exercise and fitness is important, often the way we go about it is not.

In trying to implement any change, especially where health and wellbeing are concerned, it is important to implement graduated adjustments. In doing so, you would be “pacing” your way towards positive change and it is more likely to be longer lasting and effective.

Pacing is where small incremental changes are used to increase your level of physical activity. For example, if your goal was to be able to run for 10km, you may start off with 2km and slowly increase this distance over a number of weeks or months (depending on your base level of activity), to reach your eventual goal.

This directly contrasts to what we refer to as the “boom-bust cycle”. This is the scenario where we get fed up with not exercising or maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and we feel we need to do something about it right now!

While there is nothing wrong with this sentiment, trying to implement change too quickly can lead to injuries and further inactivity. Using the example from above, this would be if you immediately tried to go for a 10km run after not having done so for a long time.

Your body would not be used to such a high level of physical activity and the resultant shock to your body could result in injuries. This in turn leads you to actually decrease your level of exercise as you recover. Then after taking time to recover, the boom-bust cycle starts again.

While pacing may seem slow, it will lead to a better result over time. This is as true for an activity like running, as it is for acute (short term), or chronic (long-term) injury recovery.

A qualified physiotherapist can assist in setting out a program which is specific for you, and assist you to achieve short-, medium- and long-term goals with a graduated exercise plan.