Slow and Steady Wins the Race
Why Slow and Steady Wins the Race: The Secret to Getting Fit Faster
In my travels, I often run into women who think that to be really fit, they have to jump up and down, and do the moves real fast. While this train of thought is common, it is also a guaranteed way to injure yourself and not get the results you seek. You ever see the same person at the gym who never looks any fitter? Watch how they work-out, I’ll bet they lift the weights really fast. In order to achieve extraordinary health, you've got to get outside of what everyone else is doing and find successful methods that work without making you feel like you have do insane extreme workouts.
One of my favorite examples is from a Functional Fitness fan who wrote me. “A few months ago while flipping through the TV stations, I came across “Functional Fitness with Suzanne Andrews.” I had just finished eight weeks of an exercise program to try to help me walk without hip pain and all that hard work didn’t help at all. My doctor told me I needed a hip replacement. But I wasn’t ready to try surgery and so I pulled up a chair and did your workout. At first I thought, this is too easy, it’s not going to do anything! But I trudged along and by the time I was able to do the standing level my hip pain was gone, I am more flexible and best of all I no longer need a hip replacement.” Elizabeth from Maine.
For the uninitiated, working out at a slower pace looks easy but since you are contracting your muscles longer, you get FASTER results. As a rehabilitation clinician, I (and my colleagues) spend much of our day instructing our patients to slow down. Not only will you build strength quicker, you’ll burn more calories–even after you’ve stopped working out. If you’re a mid-life or older person like myself, it sure beats the “beat yourself up workouts” where you feel like you’re going to die! Which, by the way, is the fastest way to not wanting to workout anymore.
Which brings me back to Elizabeth. If she hadn't taken the time to try a different method and really give it the time it deserves, she never would have experienced the amazing results she got. No it wasn’t instant, but it was worth the results.
Suzanne Andrews founded Functional Fitness in 2008, the most popular fitness series for boomers and seniors broadcasting on over 159 Public Television stations throughout the US and Canada. Read Suzanne’s inspiring comeback story of how she survived a near fatal accident, From Deaths Door to Producing a National Fitness Series. Feel free to send Suzanne a message here.
