After months of gym workouts and brief, frigid walks, it’s time to embrace the joy of your favorite warm-weather sports and activities. Whether your pursuit of choice is biking, hiking, pickleball, tennis, golf, or swimming – or a combination of several – the five tips below will help you enjoy spring and summer activities you love pain-free.
Get a good night’s sleep
A solid night’s rest is the foundation of an active life. Sleep lets your body recover from physical activity and provides the energy you need to work out at your highest level. For optimal rest, practice what’s called good sleep hygiene. Be consistent – climb into bed and get out of bed at the same times every day. Avoid large meals and alcohol two to three hours before bedtime and caffeinated beverages after mid-afternoon. Keep your bedroom dark, quiet, and at a comfortable temperature.
Stretch before and after physical activities
Devoting a few minutes to stretching both before and after you work out or engage in a sport can help prevent injury, improve your range of motion, and even enhance your performance. Pre-workout, opt for dynamic stretches – controlled movements that warm up muscles and joints. Hit all the major muscle groups with a variety of stretches like arm and hip circles, squats, marching in place with raised knees, upper body twists, and arm and leg swings. Post-exercise, you’ll want to cool down with static stretches, holding each position for at least 30 seconds and stretching as far as you can before you feel any pain. You can help your whole body recover with a half-dozen moves, including calf stretches, standing hamstring stretches, quadriceps stretches, hip flexor lunges, shoulder and neck stretches, and a few cat-cow poses.
Follow a healthy diet
Keep your body energized with nutritious whole foods. The Mediterranean Diet, with its emphasis on fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats, is one example of an eating style that supports good health. To fuel and recover from your workouts, swap highly processed snack foods for smarter options. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (Eatright.org) suggests a pre-workout snack like Greek yogurt and berries or peanut butter and a banana and a post-workout bite that might include a recovery smoothie made with low-fat milk and fruit or turkey on a whole-grain wrap with veggies.
Stay hydrated
Draining your water bottle a few times a day can make your workout feel less effortful and make you a fiercer competitor. That’s because, as the American Heart Association points out, being well hydrated helps the heart more easily pump blood throughout your body and helps your muscles work more efficiently. While water needs vary from person to person, Eatright.org suggests that, as a general rule, women need about 11.5 cups of water per day. Some of that amount can come from fluids other than water, like sparkling water, fat-free milk, herbal teas, and water-rich food like fruits and vegetables. If you’re exercising in hot weather and sweating heavily, be sure to take a few extra big swigs of water.
Be prepared to treat everyday pain
It’s not uncommon to experience aches and pains with an active lifestyle. But that doesn’t need to sideline you. Instead, send pain packing with Aspercreme. Carefully formulated to provide odor-free – no medicinal stink! – and effective, targeted pain relief, Aspercreme products include active ingredients like lidocaine, a local anesthesic; trolamine salicylate, which relieves minor joint pain; and diclofenac, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that reduces inflammation to alleviate joint and arthritis pain. For soothing pain relief that lasts, choose from the no-mess Aspercreme Lidocaine Pain Relief Roll-On With Essential Oils or a fragrance-free formulation, Arthritis Pain Relief Gel, which offers prescription-strength pain relief in an over-the-counter product, or any of Aspercreme’s pain-relief creams, sprays, or patches. Keep the Aspercreme products that are right for you in your purse or workout bag so you can get pain relief on the go.
With a few smart tweaks to your daily habits – practicing better sleep hygiene, swapping junk food for healthier choices, incorporating stretching into your daily fitness routine, drinking water throughout the day, and keeping pain-relief products handy – you can live your most active and best life this spring and summer.
Don’t let pain get in the way of staying active. Find the Aspercreme® products that are right for you here.
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