Whether you are entangled with running, cycling, weightlifting or team sport; there are a lot of things you may do to prevent injuries during training. Performing warm up before exercising, may help you to avoid injuries such as sore arms, leg cramps, muscle spasms and other pains. You have to do a warm up movement so you do not have tight stiff muscles, and it will decrease your chance of muscle injury. You also have to avoid overexertion during exercising, exhaustion increases your risk of training injuries. Please exercise at a pace which is comfortable for you. Learning the right form and movement may also assist you to prevent any muscle injuries because your muscles are not being used in an awkward way. Other ways to avoid injuries during your training are to know the reason for the injuries you have and how to treat it, and if you want to know more, you can read more here.
COMMON INJURIES DURING TRAINING
- Back Pain from Spinal Joint Sprains and Strains
From your neck to tailbone and rib cage there are hundreds of joints extending. Your movements during training which overstretch and overload your joints may be the reasons for joint sprains and strains. These are normal if you are training and may range from mild injuries, such as irritation, to serious injuries, such as debilitating pain. Most people who have these injuries may have a complete recovery from joint sprains and strains when they are treated. However, when they are not treated; they could remain troublesome for long periods or become areas of recurring injury and pain.
- Sprains and Strains of The Low Back and Pelvis
The most frequent reason for low back pain are muscle and ligament strains. Certain situations may increase the chance of straining the sacroiliac joints. While doing training such as weightlifting, you may overstress the joints because you lift very heavy dumbbells or you lift the dumbbells with the wrong posture. The symptoms of these injuries may vary, depending on the mechanism of the injury, or it is an acute sprain versus a chronic strain. Nevertheless, the general symptoms include muscle spasms, swelling, back pain and limited range of motion. Several people may also feel or hear a “pop” around their joints. If you suffer from mild to moderate low back sprains or strains, you will heal with coservative treatment within a few weeks to a couple of months as long as you follow the doctor’s orders. In addition, patients with more severe pelvis strains or sprains may need surgery and require physical therapy and rehabilitation for complete recovery. Your injuries should heal completely first before you resume your training. If overexertion caused your injury, you may need to readjust your training plan.
- Overuse Injuries and Tendonitis
Overexertion and repetitive movement during training may result in injury almost in any tendon. Repetitive use may cause rubbing and irritation which causes muscle inflammation. In several cases, it may lead to bursitis that can easily become chronic. The common symptoms of tendon overuse injuries are pain which gets worse when the tendon is stretched or when the attached muscle is tensed. For example, the achilles tendon aches when you stand on your tiptoes. You will frequently feel the pain when the tendon is attached to the bone. Putting pressure to the sore tendon may also be painful, but it will also hurt sometime when you rest it. The pain frequently limits your movement in the affected area. The painful area might also be a little swollen or stiff. Rest and treatment or rehabilitation are almost always required for tendonitis with bursitis.
- Shoulder Sprains and Strains
Your shoulder has a large range of motion but it is commonly not a very steady joint. This large range of motion may cause it to be susceptible to chronic muscle strains, tendonitis and bursitis. Shoulder sprains or strains entangle with tearing or stretching the tendons, ligaments, muscles and bones in the shoulder joints. It is a tear of one or more of the ligaments which link the bones of the shoulder joints. These injuries may occur in several places around the joints, most of it occurs at the joint between the collarbone and the shoulder blade which is known as acromioclavicular joint. This injury is generally referred to as a shoulder separation.
Overstressing the shoulder with heavy objects and repetitive strains on the shoulder joint, such as weightlifting, swimming, throwing or throwing may increase your risk of shoulder strains and sprains. The common symptoms of this injury include pain, inflammation and reduced joint mobility and flexibility. The specific symptoms may include bruising around the joint and hearing a “popping sound” around the shoulder. The first treatment for shoulder strains may include rest, ice and anti-inflammatory medications. Mild sprains and strains may be successfully self-treated. Doctor or physical therapist may provide a list of strengthening and flexibility exercises which will aid you to recover faster. In addition, severe shoulder strains may need surgery to repair torn ligaments or reattach muscle and tendons.
- Ankle Sprain
These are a general traumatic training injury. Ankle sprains are injuries to the ligaments and tendons of your ankles. Awkwardly twisting the ankle or if force is applied directly to the joint are the common reasons for ankle sprain injury. Connecting the foot with the lower leg is responsible for the ankle joint. Therefore, ankle injuries are frequently painful and may impact your ability to do daily activities such as walking, running or jumping. Bad sprains may leave the ankle weak and susceptible to reinjury with simple activities. People with mild ankle sprain will need at least ten days to recover and recovery time for severe sprain may be several weeks. While surgery is rare to treat a sprained ankle, it may be necessary to repair severe ligament damage where the joint seems to be unstable.
- Groins and Hamstring Strain
Groins and Hamstrings strains are overstretched or tearing injury to the inner tight muscles or the muscle in front of the hip which is more general for the athletes than non-athletes. These strains may occur when you do any type of forceful movement of the leg, such as jumping, kicking the leg up or changing direction while you are running. Groin strains cause walking, running, lifting the knee or moving the leg away extremely difficult and painful. When groin muscles are torn or strained, muscle fibers and other cells are disrupted and may cause bleeding which make a bruise. After that, swelling in the injured area will occur and your tight muscle will expand and feel tight and stiff.
If you experience groins and hamstring strains, you may have symptoms such as pain and spasms, swelling, bruising and tightness in the tight area, you may also feel your leg become weak when you are walking or moving your leg and you may have difficulty to do your daily activities which require standing or walking.
- Knee Injuries
Using poor techniques, physical trauma and overstain of muscle around the knee may lead you to many different knee injuries. Knee sprain is an injury to the ligaments which hold the knee together. Then, knee strains occur when your tendons or muscles which surround the knee are stretched. This strain may lead you to feel pain outside the knee joints but it may also cause dysfunction of the normal range of motion of the knee. Moreover, knee bursitis will occur when a fluid-filled pouch, which is well known as a bursa, in the knee is irritated, inflamed, or infected. And then, knee joint dislocation may happen due to high-impact, large-force injuries to the knee. It is a rare injury but causes severe damage to all the muscle, tendon and ligament around the knee and may include damage to the blood vessels and nerve around the knee. Mild knee injuries may respond well to rehabilitation but more severe knee injuries need surgery and extensive rehabilitation to make you able to train again.
HOW TO AVOID THOSE INJURY DURING TRAINING
- Get Yourself A Professional Advise
According to an article, finding a qualified osteopath will help you avoid injury during training. An osteopath has an excellent understanding of biomechanics – which is how your body moves. “This is all about good technique and knowing your body,” they said. It will be easy for an osteopath to assess your body movement and recommend what training is suitable for you or which one is not and what are good alternatives for you. And, if you also have a good trainer which may put you in a good position to train in the safest way possible. This is maybe when you may gain great results from your training with less risk of getting injured. Knowing your limitations from previous injuries and concentrating more on posture, technique and form. Advice from professional trainers is important no matter what your training is. The advice you get not only may decrease your chance of injury but it may also help you to simply focus on your training and making you get your result faster and without getting injuries. As you are getting results when you are training, you should also always be striving for improvement.
- Do Not Overexertion Yourself
Challenging yourself and pushing yourself harder is good for your training but no matter what the challenge you need you have to allow your body to get used to new movements or increased demand. Building up your training steadily will always give you the best chance of avoiding any kinds of injuries. Moreover, you cannot become disheartened when you do not see results from your training session quickly. Nothing is instant. If you do not see results, do not put too much weight or distance too quickly to see results, it may set you back severely. Overextension and not allowing your body adequate time to rest may exhaust the body. When you are exhausted and you do not allow your body to recover after exercising may lead you to injury. You have to give your body a rest and your muscles will grow stronger in the process.
- Warming Up
Why is a warm-up important? A warm-up is important because it prepares your body and mind for your training session by: gradually raising your heart rate, warming your muscles, connective tissues and making the blood flow more smoothly, improving your mobility and the functionality of all the body’s movements. In the end, it will make you far less likely to suffer muscle or tendon strains during training because your muscles are already warm, loose, pliable and ready for training.
- Cooling Down
Cool down function is basically the opposite of warming up, it will flush out the waste by products from your training session and safely return your heart rate, blood pressure and breathing to your pre-training levels. You may commonly neglect a cool-down in favour of dashing to the shower; nevertheless, it is a solution in helping you to avoid any post-exercise soreness.
- Stretching
Keeping and developing your flexibility is really important to prevent any types of injuries because poor flexibility is one of the main reasons for muscle and tendon strains. Lessened flexibility equals short, tight muscles – which are then greatly susceptible to damage during dynamic sporting activities. After cooling-down, focus your stretching on the main muscle group which you used for your training. For instance, you should focus more on leg stretches after running, whereas after an upper body workout in the gym you should focus your stretching on your chest, shoulder, back and arm.
- Get Yourself The Correct Sport Gear
In this modern era, technology has made valuable advances in injury prevention, especially for footwear. You may now get training footwear which is designed specifically for the demands of your chosen sport with different models tailored for your particular use, so that your likelihood of injury is significantly reduced.
- Importance of Good Nutrition
Why do you have to consume good nutrition? A good nutrition intake is a good foundation for an effective training program, because you have to put back into your body what you take out. The demands of sport and training on your body mean that your nutrition intake is greater than that of a sedentary person. If your nutrition intake is neglected, probably your body will be unable to recover properly from training and lead you to illness or injury.
- Please Do Not Ignore Your Pain
If you feel your body aches, please STOP your training. Pushing yourself through pain is not good, especially the pain you feel you do not have before. Pushing yourself through fatigue for resistance training is how you progress and after an intense weight training a stretch or foam roller may ease minor soft tissue strains. Moreover, a good trainer may assist you to identify the difference between pushing yourself to the next level and pain due to muscles or tendon injury. If you are pushing yourself through muscle injury, it will make your injury worse and may risk your life. Continuing training with tendon injuries may cause tendonitis that can be hard to recover. It is a similar story for stress fracture. Often your body is trying to tell you to take a rest because you put too much stress on your body. Therefore, please do not ignore any pain, if you feel pain take a rest a bit until the pain is better. Please seek doctor help if the pain does not disappear for a few days.