The vast majority of people I see, see me when they’re injured. Wouldn’t it be great to avoid these injuries in the first place? There are a number of relatively easy things you can implement into your training that can make a huge difference and massively reduce your chance of injury.
I’ve split them into a few key principles, which can be applied to whatever sport or activity you do.
Managing your load
What is load? Load is essentially the amount of ‘work’ you’re doing and therefore the amount of stress that is placed on your body during your training. It can come in many forms. For example, a runner’s load could be: total volume (km run per week), intensity (speed) or frequency of runs.
Let’s break this down… so if I normally run a total of 15km a week at the same speed, my body will be pretty well adapted to this. But if suddenly jump from 15km a week to 45km a week then I’ve tripled the total load. Big spikes in your load increase the risk of getting injured, as the difference in what your body is used to vs what you’re asking it to do becomes too big. This puts you in an injury risk zone.
Similarly, if you’re progressing your squat by 5kg every couple of weeks then this is a nice steady increase. However, if you suddenly try and increase it by 20kg each week then you’re asking your body of too much!
Bear in mind that these are just examples and some people can make bigger jumps than others, because their body is robust enough to tolerate this. Learning to understand your tolerance and building this up takes time.
Being strong
Getting ‘strong’ massively reduces the chance of injury.
If you play tennis and do resistance training to target your shoulder, then it’s going to be in a much better position to tolerate the forces you apply through it whilst playing.
If you’re running, you have about 7 times your bodyweight going through your calf and ankle when you land. So, if you’re doing additional strength training to increase the calf’s ability to absorb and produce force, your calf will be in a much better position to tolerate this. Which (as I’m sure you’ve guessed) reduces the risk of injury.
Resistance training in general will help to make robust muscles, joints and bodies.
Biomechanics
Essentially, this is how we move. Moving in certain ways or executing certain movements without good form, can overload areas in the body.
If your knee drops inwards when you land this will increase your risk of knee injuries like ACL tears. Similarly, lifting weights in the gym with incorrect form can increase the chance of getting injured.
Correcting this takes patience and sometimes even the eye of a professional, so if you have any concerns about this it’s best to see a specialist.
Treatment
Hands on treatment can reduce the risk of injury by improving pain and movement. For example, if your Glutes are tights then it could increase the risk of lower back pain, but some joint mobilisations and soft tissue massage can improve the mobility in the Glutes and reduce the chance of you getting injured.
However, this becomes almost pointless if you’re ignoring the other key points outlined above. If you’re always getting massages on your Hamstring, but then continuing to overload them whilst running, the massage may help but it’s only short term.
Summary
Injuries happen! The cause of them is extremely complicated and the evidence still has a lot of holes in it. Whilst it’s difficult to avoid injuries altogether, following these basics points will massively help to keep them at bay.