You do need a gym membership.  Here’s why:

You Don’t Want an Injury

If you want to lift your 50 pound kid without hurting your back, then plan to gradually increase your training so you can lift at least 75 pounds. You will be much less likely to get injured that way. And even if you do get injured, recovery is much easier if you are strong beforehand.

You Have an Injury

Many patients come to us with an injury that started because of muscle imbalances. For example, your glutes are not working so your hamstrings are doing all the work and you end up with a hamstring strain. Once your therapist has helped you figure out how to activate the right muscle, you then need to strengthen that “lazy” muscle. Theraband resistance can be a good first step in waking up that lazy muscle. To fully restore that weak muscles strength, you need a progressive loading program. That’s when strength training is critical and when finding a gym to keep the strength training going, is a great next step.  A gym membership will also help you get to that supplemental strengthening to help you excel at your chosen activity.

Thinking about freezing your climbing gym membership during your injury?

Most likely (without knowing everything about your current injury), you shouldn’t.  Climbing gyms have full sets of weights and many machines that may assist you during your rehab.  An experienced climbing PT will also give you guidelines about what you can and can’t climb at certain stages along the way (post-op protocols aren’t always created equally from patient to patient and don’t take into account your specific function).  If climbing is your main form socialization, keep that going.  At the very least, you can drink a beer and heckle your friends for punting off the top of the Font at The Spot.

You are Young

Now and Only Now is the time you build tendons, because after puberty, what you have is what you get for the rest of your life. With strengthening, not only do tendons get stronger, muscles and bones will respond to the increase in stress and get stronger too.

You have young kids?

Get them in every activity imaginable – let them take risks, hang from their shoulders, fall, get bumps and bruises, and learn how normal pain works. They will be okay, and heal a hell of a lot faster than you. As soon as they are mature enough to follow a sport-specific training regimen (regular practice, working on sport specific drills), they are safe to lift weights.

You Are Old

Starting in your 30s and 40s, you lose 3-5% of our muscle mass each decade, but that loss accelerates after age 65. Not only do older adults tend to lose muscle mass faster than young people, but it is tougher to put back on. However, you can still build muscle with the right stimulus. Strength training will also improve bone density, coordination and balance. Staying strong keeps you functional, social, and doing what you love. Whether you want to get out to the pickleball courts, or get off your couch to walk to the fridge, strength training will help you.

You Are an Endurance Athlete

Even though your muscles may feel like they can work efficiently for a long time, endurance athletes are great at using shortcuts in their movements. They  often rely on tendons and ligaments rather than muscles, to generate force. Why? Those structures don’t consume energy but can generate force when you are moving. Resistance training will reinforce your muscles’ ability to contract and relax and thus decrease stress on joints and other structures. Oh, and it makes you faster.

You Play For A Sports Team

Plyometrics don’t build tendon tissue, but strength training does. Tendons need strong muscles to stay healthy by keeping the joints in a neutral position. Working on sports skills is vital and the main focus of practices, but to build true resilience for game day, strength training is a must, especially in the off season.

You Don’t Exercise

There is no better time than now to start.  We may not all be Olympians, but we can each still improve our capacities and the benefits are enormous. Exercise has been shown to help stave off systemic diseases such as:

• Cardiovascular Disease
• Endocrine Diseases like Diabetes
• Neurological Disorders such as Dementia
• Mental Health Disorders such as Depression or Anxiety

Gyms can be intimidating places if you are new to them.

Your physical therapist can make sure you have the range of motion and are using the right muscles for a specific movement. Or, if you have a lot of joint pain, you might need to use Blood Flow restriction  to get stronger before you go to the gym.

Once you are ready, working with a trainer can help get you comfortable with the equipment. Or join  a class to work out with other people and have the benefit of trained eyes on you.

We have Pilates classes at ALTA as well that will help strengthen your core (and everything else really).  Or if you’d rather, invest in a home gym. Making a home gym can actually be cheaper than having a gym membership for a year.  Whatever you decide, the benefits of getting stronger far outweigh the risks of staying weaker than you can be.

If you need help figuring out what you should work on, how to do it, or when to do it, our therapists at ALTA can help!