How To Avoid Gym Injuries
No-one intends getting injured, but it’s common amongst frequent gym-goers and happen too often. Injuries are setbacks and obstacles to your goals, they limit or even stop your ability to work out and sometimes even doing normal everyday activities such as walking, sitting or driving can be a challenge.
Poor exercise techniques are the most common cause of weight training injuries, or they occur as a result of fatigue, overuse, or improper use of a muscle. There are a number of ways to help prevent injury:
1.Warm-up and cool-down. Every workout should begin with a warm-up and end with a cool-down period. This will help increase blood flow to your muscles and decrease you risk of injury. Ambassador Emma Larson makes sure she is completely warmed up before she starts any gym session. Prevention is better than sure!
2.Stretch. Do dynamic stretching before and after you work out, slowly increasing your level of activity.
3.Ease into it. When you begin an exercise routine or start a new workout program, start slowly.
4.Cross-train and vary your workout.
5.Rest. If you feel sore after a workout, give yourself extra days to recover.
In fact, the most common workout injuries amongst our ambassadors include:
Rotator cuff 38%
Common with ambassador Peter Batai who does a lot of lifting, telling us it usually kicks off after a serious shoulder workout.
Lower back 27%
This effects Chloe Barrigan and Jess Lee – especially when the muscle hase been overworked.
Tendonitis in elbow 13%
Craig Wright advises that this is a side effect of constant training with little rest, and he tries to train around it.
Hand
Only our resident professional boxer, ambassador Brandon Daord – not surprising really!
Hamstring 8%
An occasional problem for ambassador Arran Perry.
Shins (due to running) 11%
Helen McGregor experiences sore shins through too much running – not her favourite activity, so it can sometimes be a blessing in disguise!