Welcome back to Fitness Fanatic this week we are going to discuss ways to avoid exercise injuries. You have finally made the commitment to get in shape and are seeing results. You don’t want to have a setback, such as an injury to interrupt your progress. There are many factors that can play into an exercise injury that we are going to cover.
Here is an image of a woman who has injured her knee running.
First of all, it is important to know your body and its limitations. If you have had past injuries it is important to take them into consideration. For example, if you are a person who has bad knees or has had pervious knee surgery’s you should not be squatting a lot of weight you should be doing exercises that avoid putting a lot of stress on your knee such as a stationary bike or elliptical that is easy on your knee. Then as you build strength you can move towards more direct movements such as squatting with lighter weight. Take into consideration the weaker areas of your body and try to slowly build them up over time. Do not just jump right into a heavy lift and put a lot of stress on areas of your body that may be weaker because this can lead to injury.
Here is an image of a woman properly stretching and warming up before a workout.
Secondly one of the most important ways to avoid injury is to warm up and stretch before and cool down and stretch after your workouts. Warming up your muscles before a workout helps increase your muscles flexibility before lifting heavy weight. The last thing you want to do is pull or tear a muscle. Warming up will elevate your heart rate and increase the flow of blood and oxygen throughout your body. Also, stretching helps prepare the soft tissue and joints of the body to safely perform exercise. It is very important to warm up and stretch before a workout but it is just as important to cool down and stretch after your workout. A cool down helps bring your heart rate back to normal. After a workout, your heart is still beating fast and your body temperature is higher therefore if you just stop exercising abruptly with no cool down you could pass out or feel sick. A cooldown after a workout will gradually decrease heart rate and temperature. Stretching after a workout helps reduce the buildup of lactic acid which could lead to muscle soreness and cramping.
You don’t just end a workout you finish it the right way with a cool down!
The final factor to consider to help avoid exercise injury is overdoing it. Doing the same exercise over and over using the same muscle can lead to overuse and injury. If you never let your muscles rest and recover then you may experience never ending soreness and may not see the results you want. A few other injuries due to overuse include shin splints from running too much and tendinitis. To avoid over doing it you need to add variety your workouts. Set aside one day to run another day to lift upper body, then the next day lift lower body, etc. It is also important to set aside a few days of rest for your muscles to heal and grow.