Have you ever been on a hike or a run, and all of a sudden something doesn’t feel right? Maybe it’s a pain in your knee, your hip, or your back. Injuries can happen even during average everyday workouts, and ultimately can derail our fitness goals. Workouts can help us gain balance, agility, and stamina, so long as we don’t become injured in the process. So it’s important to take injury prevention seriously if you want to meet your fitness goals, so you can reap the full benefits
Why Try Our Workout
Some workouts such as (Your Gym Name’s) Workouts are different from others, since we have spent time studying and incorporating injury prevention techniques into our training sessions. Our fitness classes at Going are designed to yield results, while preventing injuries. At (Your Gym Name), we have a team of NASM Certified Personal Trainers and Nutrition Coaches, trained by the world-class fitness & nutrition experts.
Conditioning + Prevention
Regular workouts are a great way to get in condition, while burning calories, increasing metabolism, and promoting fat loss. Doing so in a safe way involves improving control of your bodily movements, utilizing correct techniques, to increase your level of functional strength. When you are well-conditioned you can go for those longer runs. Athletes perform at higher intensities for longer time periods, due to their conditioning. Participating in regular aerobic conditioning is linked to lowered blood pressure, which decreases risk for heart attacks, and stroke. Conditioning also improves sleep quality, boosts self-esteem, and reduces stress levels.
Target Specific Muscle Groups
When you are targeting specific muscle groups you are minimizing stress on others. Alternating between muscle groups on different days at the gym, gives them time to recover. In addition, when you just work your upper body, or your lower, your training routine is more symmetrical, leading to a more balanced core, in addition to avoiding injury. In our Fit + Glow Core Workout (or your workout name) , we blend exercises designed to target your core and abdominal muscles, such as mountain climbers, and planks.
Why is Injury Prevention Important?
Workouts stress our bodies, and when our bodies are unprepared for routine actions such as running, bending, twisting, and participating in recreational sports. As we age, we gain intellectually in wisdom, while our muscle mass and bone density can decrease. All this leads to ever increasing injury risk. Strength and resistance training can fight against these risks.
Why Resistance Training?
Resistance training builds muscle mass, while strengthening joints, tendons, and ligaments. When we make our bodies stronger, our bodies are better able to support us in everything we do in life, while preventing injuries. It stimulates bone growth and increases bone density, which helps avoid weakness and osteoporosis. It is especially good at increasing your resting metabolic rate (RMR), which burns more calories at rest, aiding in weight management and fat loss.
Top Tips for Injury Prevention
Whether you’re young or old, a beginner or a fitness coach, everyone still must play by the same rules, to avoid injury during exercise.
Wear the Right Attire
What you wear when you workout should be comfortable and supportive. If working out is part of your life, it pays to invest in quality workout gear. Compression wear is popular amongst athletes. Just about every woman has a sports bra. Runners wear compression leggings. A good pair of sneakers is important, and should be geared toward your workout preferences. Sport-specific protective gear may be needed, depending on your sport.
Always Warm Up First
Warming up and stretching is the number one way to reduce injury risk. Start your workout in layers, and as you warm off you can remove them. Being cold can make muscles stiff, and tough to stretch out. Some great warm ups are walking, jogging, and yoga. The stretching out, with hamstring stretches, tricep stretch, shoulder stretches, and lunges is a good rule of thumb.
Stretch Everyday
When you stretch and lengthen your muscles and ligaments, it promotes flexibility while reducing injury risk. As an athlete or anyone serious about working out, it’s important to keep muscles, joints, and tendons limber. The hamstring stretch, tricep stretch, shoulder stretches lunges, and yoga, are all things you can practice everyday. It’s easy to stretch throughout your day, wherever you are if you make it a priority. In the morning, at lunch, and before bed are all times to stretch, even if for a minute or two.
Always Cool Down
Make your cool down a routine a priority, with gentle movements, and stretches. Walking and yoga poses such as child’s pose, Cat cow, and knees to chest are great ways to cool down. Proper recovery time helps prevent injuries to muscles, tendons, and joints. It’s important to let go of tension post-workout. When we work one muscle group per day, as recommended by most trainers, we prioritize one muscle group over another. Sometimes the muscles overcompensate, so the cool down is key to their recovery.
Tip: If you live near a gym, why not walk there as a warm up, and walk back as a cool down?
Get Plenty of Rest
Rest and Recovery allows your body to recover, aiding muscle repair and minimizing stiffness and soreness. Most fitness coaches recommend not working out everyday, so your body has time to recover. Overworking muscles without sufficient recovery leads to overuse injuries. When you lift weights or use resistance bands, your muscles push and pull, which may lead to muscle fiber damage. During the recovery process muscle fibers repair themselves, utilizing a process called hypertrophy, where they grow stronger and larger.
Refuel Your Body
When we workout, we deplete ourselves of calories. When you are in a calorie deficit, you lose weight. That’s why it’s key to replace and refuel what’s most important. Our muscles need protein, especially in recovery post-work-out. That’s why many sport nutritionists recommend a protein smoothie post-workout. Another thing to replenish is electrolytes, especially during intense, sweaty workouts, where our bodies expel salt through our pores, which are needed to maintain equilibrium.
Healthy Eating
Proper nutrition significantly impacts your workout performance. In general a balanced whole foods diet supports muscle rebuilding, bone density, and tendon strength. Most athletes turn to carbs for energy since they provide a balanced source of energy, and calories, needed for high endurance activities, such as running, or team sports. It’s easy to take a whole foods approach, avoiding refined starches, which are empty calories. Try reaching instead for whole grains such as brown rice, oats, and fruit. Good protein sources are key for muscle repair, growth, and recovery, especially post-workout. Vitamins, minerals, and hydration all play a part in our body maintaining a balanced equilibrium, before, during, and after you workout.
Healthy Lifestyle
Beyond workouts, injury prevention also involves maintaining a healthy diet, staying hydrated, and getting enough sleep. It all works together, hand in hand. Take your lifestyle into account when planning workouts. Many of us head right from the office chair onto the treadmill, or hit the trail after work. But even when you’re at work, there are opportunities to stretch, take breaks, and get your muscles ready for that after work run. Try to stand up at least once an hour during your take, to help with circulation.
Time to De-Stress
For some of us workouts are a way to de-stress. However, when we workout intensely, it puts stress on our bodies, but the level of which depends on the type of activity. High intensity workouts tend to increase cortisol, while low intensity ones, such as yoga decrease it. Giving your body ample time in de-stress mode is just as important as cramming in a session of Hiit or Zumba after work. Taking time to allow your body recovery time from all the stresses in life, from work, or your daily commute, will also help with injury prevention. When our minds are free of stress, we are able to think clearer, and make better decisions going into workouts, to stay injury free. Regular exercise also reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression by releasing endorphins, the body’s natural mood lifters.
Back to Fundamentals
Now that you’ve learned the fundamentals of injury prevention, I hope this helps you to better design a healthy, injury free fitness routine. Join us at (Your Gym Name’s) for a week free, and a free training session on us. Click the link below to get started!
