Consider any of your old injuries when picking up a new sport

If you have just started a new sport or fitness program, chances are, you jumped in without giving your body much thought. Whether you work out with an instructor or alone, you need to consider the effect and result of your exercise movements.

Deciding on a safe form of exercise and finding out the advantages of that particular sport can help you maintain safe levels and still get the best results.

There seems to be a trial period for the new fitness student: a two-month period ending when he or she decides to continue with exercise, or check it off as something already accomplished.

Too often, this decision is complicated by the advent of an injury. And, too often the injury is the result of a prior injury that the student didn't consider before starting his or her chosen sport. If this sounds complicated, it can be.

About 9 percent of the students who exercise in my class already have an area on their body that requires monitoring. Maybe a leg that has been broken years before, a neck that has suffered a whiplash in an automobile accident, or a back that got rolled up on the ski slopes. And this doesn't even count the wear and tear your body receives on a daily basis.

Whatever you have done to yourself in your youth will follow you around the jogging course, into the swimming pool or onto the aerobic floor. Consider your body first before you undertake the impossible.

If you had a major rotor-cuff surgery years before, maybe swimming laps isn't the best thing for your shoulder. If you had knee surgery or an ankle broken in the past, then jogging or aerobics may not be for you. You may instead be a candidate for the pool.

Take the time to consider your body and its prior life. What did you do to your arm or shoulder before you picked up that tennis racquet?

Note the twinges in that area as you continue your sport. Don't wait until it becomes a chronic problem that will give you negative thoughts about continuing sweating. There are wonderful results from consistent, safe exercise, so you need to stay with it, not drop out because you've activated an old injury.

-- Jerry Vance is owner of The Sweat Shop/Wet Sweat. She offers classes through Carson City Recreation and Aquatics Center and is a fitness instructor for the senior center.