COMMON WORKOUT INJURIES AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

One of the ways to improve the quality of your life and increase your longevity is to exercise. Regular exercise boosts your immunity, strengthens your muscles and bones for a better posture and lowers your risk of developing heart diseases. There are also mental health benefits of exercise.

While the benefits far outweigh the risks, workout injuries are real and can hinder progress towards your fitness goals. Most injuries often arise from lack of sufficient warm up and wrong form while doing the exercises. The common workout injuries being dislocation, sprains and muscle tears.

Here are other common injuries and how to prevent them.

Muscle pull

Although they can affect any muscle groups, most people experience muscle pull in the leg muscles particularly the calf muscles, hamstring and the quadriceps. It is usually that caused by over-stretching or over-tightening the affected muscles.

Depending on the severity, it always let’s off when the muscle is relaxed but muscle tears required medical attention.

The way to avoid muscle pulls is to warm up the muscles well before any strenuous exercise.

Back injury

The gym can be the solution to your back pain and also be the cause of the back pain. While most Medical Insurance Reviews cover chronic back pain, few cover back injuries from the gym yet this is one of the most common workout injuries.

Back pain is often caused by an imbalance in the back and abdominal muscles or the incorrect way of doing crunches.

Tucking in your chin into your chest while doing crunches and not tightening your abdominal muscles could be the cause of your back pain. The unnatural posture puts a strain on your back thus the pain.

The other cause could be that you are working your abs at the expense of your back muscles. This results in an imbalance since the back is made to bear weight it is not primed for.

The solution is to do your crunches with the correct form and strengthening your back muscles.

Shoulder injury

Most upper body exercise involve the shoulder either directly or indirectly making it prone to injuries.

Common shoulder injuries are a result of lifting uncomfortably heavy weights and overworking.

To avoid shoulder injury, do all your upper body exercises such as chest and shoulder workouts in a single day in order to give the shoulder muscles some rest.

Wrist injury

Your wrist can sprain or dislocate. This is usually cause by overextending the writ or weak ligaments. It’s more common among weightlifters.

You can use a wrist band to provide additional support to your joints but prolonged use further weakens the muscles.

Sprained ankle

Ankles sprains occur when you make a sudden change in direction with the foot on the ground and the ankle rolls forward causing ligament damage. The damage can be a simple overstretching or a ligament tear.

Avoid spraining your ankle by wearing shoes that offer extra support to your ankle and wearing appropriate ankle support when you engage in sports that involve several sudden changes in direction like basketball.