People exercise for all kinds of reasons. Some do it for health and fitness. Others want to lose weight or bulk up. Still others exercise as a way to improve their looks and gain confidence.
The last thing you want is to injure yourself while you’re exercising, not only because it can be painful, but also because it can derail your progress and disrupt your life. Luckily, there are a number of strategies you can employ toward preventing injuries while exercising. Here are a few helpful tips to incorporate into your routine.
Warm Up, and Skip the Stretching
Okay, technically there’s nothing wrong with stretching before you exercise, except that it doesn’t help you to warm up. The whole point of the warmup is to heat your muscles and loosen your joints in preparation for more intense activity. Especially unhelpful is warming up and then stretching, which allows your body to cool down prior to intense exercise.
The best warmups will therefore involve low-intensity versions of your intended exercise, such as walking and then slow jogging before more intense running, just for example. Ideally, you want to warm and loosen the parts of your body that you intend to use.
Active stretching has become a popular means of warming up, and, as the name implies, it includes both activity and stretching. For example, you could stretch your arms up and to the front and back to loosen your shoulders, back, and chest, or you could do windmills to warm up at the same time.
Stretching simply isn’t your best bet for preventing injuries while exercising; warming up prepares your body for strenuous activity. The best time to stretch is at the end of your cool down when your body is already warm.
Hydrate and Eat Right
Exercise can sap your energy and deplete your body’s level of hydration. For this reason, diet goes hand-in-hand with exercise.
Advice about when to fuel up and what to eat and drink may vary by source, but it is generally agreed that you should hydrate before, during, and after activity. If you get to the point where you’re feeling thirsty and dry, you waited too long.
Sports drinks are an option and they can help to both hydrate and replenish electrolytes, but many are full of sugar, so you should use them in conjunction with water, not instead of it. Too much sugar during long workouts can make you feel sick.
As for food, carbs are the best source of fuel and protein is essential to repairing the damage you do to muscles during workouts. Make sure you have adequate amounts of both in your diet as a means of staying healthy and preventing injuries while exercising. Don’t forget to consume plenty of essential vitamins and nutrients as part of an overall healthy diet, as well.
Whether your goals for exercising include losing weight or gaining, cutting or bulking, developing long, lean muscles, or simply getting fit and firm, you may find that cross training helps you to reach your goals more quickly. Focusing on specific exercises or muscle groups is a good way to achieve targeted results, but what good are they if the rest of your body is underdeveloped?
In addition to making you more fit overall, cross training is ideal for preventing injuries while exercising. When you develop your whole body, even if you spend more time on certain areas, you increase general strength and flexibility, reducing the risk for injury.
Listen to Your Body
No matter what steps you take in the pursuit of preventing injuries while exercising, there are few better indicators than your own body. Pushing yourself is fine so long as you respect your limits and you are aware of the threshold between discomfort and the pain that signals an injury.
Hire a Professional
Knowing how to choose appropriate exercises, perfect your form, and achieve optimal results is an important part of preventing injuries while exercising. However, you may need a professional personal trainer to teach you, monitor your progress, and correct your form.
If you’ve been injured before, you may also want to consider seeing a physical therapist. This professional can help you to recuperate with an exercise plan designed to compensate for your injury, strengthen atrophied muscles, increase flexibility, and generally prepare you to return to your regular routine.