Staying Healthy Indoors This Winter

As we head into the colder months, it’s getting more difficult to head outside for a bike ride or a run around the park. However, our Texas Spine and Sports Therapy team is here to provide you with tips on staying healthy indoors when the weather is colder out. Keep reading to learn at-home exercise options, how to protect your muscles when working out at home, and what to do in case you experience muscle soreness, pain, or strains.

Staying Healthy Indoors

While many people have been working out at home due to COVID-19, it’s been easy to head outdoors and take walks, go on runs, hikes, and more to stay healthy. However, now that it’s getting colder out, that’s getting more and more difficult to do. Thankfully, working out at home can be just as effective as going to a gym if you put in the effort. If you’re looking to stay healthy at home this winter, try these options:

High-intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

This option is a good way to get your heart rate up in a short amount of time. The workout is structured with a certain amount of exercise and a certain amount of rest. For example, you will do an exercise for 45 seconds and take a 15 second rest before moving on. You can find HIIT workouts to follow online, or you can make it up yourself. Try including some heart-pumping exercises like:

• Jumping jacks 
• Lunges 
• Squat jumps
• Burpees 
• Plank jacks
• High knees 
• Mountain climbers 

Yoga

Another good option for your mind and body this winter is yoga. Along with the benefits for your body, yoga is also a good option for your mental health during the winter months. The American Osteopathic Association details the benefits of yoga to be how it incorporates mediation and breathing to help improve your mental well-being. This form of exercise can help with mental clarity and calmness, promote body awareness, relieve chronic stress patterns, and improve concentration. They explain the physical benefits of yoga include: 

• Increased flexibility
• Improved muscle tone and strength 
• Better respiration, energy, and vitality
• Maintaining a balanced metabolism
• Weight loss
• Cardio and circulatory health
• Improved athletic performance
• Protection from injury 

Protecting Yourself Indoors

Even though you’re not lifting heavy weights at the gym or going on long outdoor runs, it’s still important to take the time to properly warm up and cool down each time to exercise. Properly warming your muscles up and cooling them down can help prevent injury and soreness. 

Warming up helps get your muscles ready for exercise. Gradually warming up also helps get your cardiovascular system going by increasing blood flow and your body temperature. Alternatively, cooling down helps with gradual recovery, getting your heart rate back down to what it was before exercise and regulating blood flow. 

Common Injuries

If you feel any pain at all when you’re working out, you should stop the exercise and consult with a doctor before continuing. If you workout on an injured muscle or joint, you risk further injury and pain. Common injuries among athletes are: 

• Ankle sprain
• Groin pull 
• Hamstring strain
• Shin splints
• Knee injuries
• Tennis elbow 

These injuries are common, but they can be treated by our professional team at Texas Spine and Sports Therapy Center. Treating all of these and more, our diverse team of medical professionals work together to make sure you live the pain-free life you’re entitled to. Our clinic provides a wide range of services in one convenient office. Common treatments for athletic injuries include:

• Sports injury assessment to help you get back to training quickly
• Advice on at-home exercises and remedies to incorporate for relief 
• Deep tissue massage
• Vibration therapy
• Chiropractic care
• Joint injections 
• Scheduled rest 
• And more! 

Make an Appointment with Texas Spine and Sports Therapy Center

When you arrive for your first visit with us, our team at Texas Spine and Sports Therapy Center will spend time learning about you and your history. This information will help our team know how significant your pain problem is and how we can best treat you. Then, we will get started on your treatment plan. Along with our knowledge, we will need your participation for the best results. 

To learn more, call our office today at (512)-806-0015. Conveniently located in Austin, TX, we are ready to help you. Providing a specialized treatment plan for your athletic pain, we will get to the bottom of where your symptoms are coming from and what exactly it will take to get you better soon.