Each January, we tend to make healthy New Year's resolutions and promise ourselves to avoid being one of the 80% that fall off the wagon by February. But avoiding your trainer by Valentine's Day isn't necessarily the worst thing you can do when it comes to January visions of grandeur.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is going all in during the first weeks of the year, especially when it comes to fitness. After months of living sedentary working lives, many of us suddenly acquire gym-rat fever in the hopes of working off those excess winter calories.

But being too committed is actually a recipe for disaster leading to excessive soreness, injuries, and overtraining syndrome of too much exercise and too little rest. If you feel like you can't move after a day of training, that's an indicator of overtraining. Overdoing it usually leads to disappointment and burnout. Nobody is too old or too out of shape to adjust to a fitness routine.

There’s no doubt after a long hiatus, your body is going to undergo a lot of stress with the tearing down and rebuilding of muscle, putting stress on your joints, and reworking your stamina and lung capacity. It’s hard!

Here’s some useful tips to keep you going till you reach those lofty goals you set for 2020:

1. PACE YOURSELF

Don't go from zero to 100 on New Year's Day. Set realistic goals to preventing injury and burnout. If you've never run more than a 5K, signing up for a half marathon in January isn't a good idea. You’ll lose confidence when you can’t perform at your expected level.

2. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR FORM

If you're venturing into new gym territory, work with a personal trainer or if you can’t afford one then watch trainer videos on YouTube. To adjust to your new routine, slow down your movements to get a better connection to what part of your body you are working on. You can even use a slow-motion strength training routine to see bigger gains. Pushing weights as hard and as fast as you can is a recipe for injury. Don’t forget to add variety to your workout routine to prevent overworking particular muscle groups.

3. GET PROPER BODYWORK

Your body will be sore (if your doing it right) and you will develop knots and tension that needs to be resolved so your body can work properly. Our Thai Sport Massage is the perfect combination of accupressure, sports-style massage, and light stretching designed to keep your body working as it should. If injured or inflexible then we recommend upping it to Thai Therapeutic or Thai Neuromuscular. Therapeutic is exactly Thai Sport with additional “massage with motion” techniques that makes it the Rolls Royce of our proprietary protocols. While our Neuromuscular is really geared to specific parts of your body that are in chronic distress and may involve special protocols to release of entrapped nerves etc.

4. EVALUATE YOUR PROGRESS

You can avoid overtraining by evaluating your own workout performance by asking yourself questions while you exercise: Did my normal weight feel too heavy today? Was I able to reach my normal amount of reps? Do I need more recovery between reps than usual? If you're struggling to keep up a week into your New Year's routine, you're overdoing it. Back off, and you'll thank yourself later-specifically, three months down the road, when you're still grinding on that goal.