Tips For Avoiding Injuries During Training

Follow these simple tips for avoiding injuries to ensure your safety during your workout! Use the following insider information to understand what injuries are and how they occur.

Why do injuries occur?

Many things factor into why an injury occurs; poor training practices, improper equipment, poor conditioning, bad form, insufficient warm-up and even accidents can be the root cause. While freak injuries are unavoidable, you should aim to minimise the risk of injuring yourself in your training exercises.

Types of injuries:

An acute injury occurs immediately, an example of which is a broken bone or torn muscle. Contributing factors to this injury type would be bad lifting technique, failure to warm up and poor judgement. Acute injuries are often the most serious and training through the injury is not recommended.

A sub-acute injury is built over a period of time, for example, muscle strains and later stages of acute injuries such as tissue damage. Training can continue with a sustained sub-acute injury although intensity and load should be lowered to accommodate for the injury. Range of movement through stretches should be trained, keeping the muscles active but under little stress is best recommended.

Chronic injuries are those which recur or persist over an extended period of time. When training, chronic injuries should be given rest rather than stress as chronic injuries can cause acute injuries. Chronic injuries are caused by overuse of a part of the body, train with caution as one mistake can cause an acute injury and a possible surgery that will then permanently weaken that part of the body.

Any injury that causes concern should be assessed by your GP/Health professional as soon as possible.

Our tips for avoiding injuries:

• Take time to properly warm-up
• Learn the correct form for each exercise
• Don’t Ego lift – lift excessive amount of weight regularly
• Don’t skip rest days
• Balance your training – don\’t overtrain one muscle group
• Listen to your body – persistent pain is a problem
• Use the correct equipment
• Wear appropriate clothing

Rehabilitation

Following a serious injury, it is necessary to introduce stress to the surrounding muscles and connective tissue in order to strengthen them. Physiotherapists aid in muscle development by managing injuries, stretching and providing pain relief through assisted movements. Movement control and range of motion are critical in rehabilitation to ensure proper movement during exercise and in daily life. Improper movement and control can put added stress on weaker muscles causing injuries. Developing a new training plan centred on strengthening and conditioning the recovered body part in an attempt to regain lost strength.

When rehabilitating after an injury, persistence and patience are required because you may feel as strong as you did before the injury, but your body is not up to the task. Pushing yourself to finish your old exercises will result in the injury reoccurring. For example, if you have a shoulder injury, avoid putting too much weight on it. Even attempting a few pull-ups can set your rehabilitation back to day one, as the injury will occur and you will be back at square one. Conditioning takes time and cannot be rushed because muscles need rest to strengthen.

Know your limits, use progressive overload and ensure you work up to higher weights. Be mindful to avoid injuries during your sessions, and ensure to take care during rehabilitating any injury. Suffering any prolonged pain or discomfort? Seek a professional medical opinion as soon as possible.

Tell us which tips for avoiding injuries you knew and share what other tips you have.

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