Choosing a fitness programme? There are some programs out theresucha s p90x where its intensive exercise from day one, jumping through hoops by the end of the week you are visiting the physical therapist!

Too often however, the urgency to get fit quick leads to poor results and injury as we try to play catch up with overzealous workouts and ill-advised dieting.

The basic premise of all well designed exercise programs is the progressive overload principle. Fitness must be “pushed” from below, i.e. starting slow and progressing to harder workouts slowly. In addition, what recreational athletes and fitness enthusiasts don’t realize is that elite and professional athletes spend half of their workout time in the gym on injury prevention. All strength and conditioning programs must begin with a joint stability phase where the body is hardened against injury. This phase prepares the body for the more strenuous work to come later in the training cycle.

Phase 1 of the 24 Fit Workout is about establishing stability throughout every part of your body. That’s Spine and Pelvic Stabilisation, Shoulder Stabiliszation and Total Body Integration. This involves the use of light weights and other exercises to strengthen all the little “helper muscles” around the joints, which, along with a lot of stretching insures that each joint is functioning properly.

Take the shoulder which has the greatest range of movement of any joint in the body, which explains why injuries to the shoulder are common. Maybe interesting to see how the shoulder works before addressing the preventative measures. As the video shows its’ an elegant piece of machinery where hundreds of little muscles and tendons come together and attach and interact with each other.

The bottom line for those injuries is that there is only one way to prevent them – by creating the correct posture for the shoulder joint, which means strengthening and stretching the muscles around your shoulder to prevent injury to the joint. So the 24 Fit workout includes exercises such as “Shoulder Horizontal Abduction in 1/4 squat”,” Shoulder Flexion in 1/4 Squat” “Shoulder internal rotation” etc. etc

Phase 1 prepares your body for the more challenging workouts to come