As you go about your fitness plan, tending to your injury risk will be imperative to your success. So many people and athletes neglect this and start taking action when it’s far too late. The fact to keep in mind is that if you take a preventative approach to your workouts, then you shouldn’t ever – or very rarely be sidelined and in pain.
Let’s go over four smart tips to know and remember that will help you stay injury free.
#1 Always Warm-Up
First, you may have heard it before but it’s time to hear it again, never, ever skip over your warm-up. If you aren’t warming up properly, this is going to have a significant influence on your ability to prevent injuries.
Your bones will be cold. Your tendons will be cold. Your ligaments will be cold. And each of these has the risk of problems developing when stress is applied to them and you are not ready to manage that stress.
Not to mention you’ll perform far better if you do your warm-up before you begin the session as well. It’s a can’t-lose bet and only takes 5-10 minutes to do.
#2 Don’t Exercise Hungry
Next, make sure that you are never exercising when you’re feeling hungry. If you exercise while hungry, you’re going to increase the risk that you suffer from low blood glucose. When that sets in, weakness will come over your body and could make you far more careless with the weight that you’re lifting.
Always eat a pre workout meal or snack 30 minutes to two hours beforehand. The notion that you’ll burn more fat if you don’t eat isn’t entirely accurate as it’s your total daily calorie intake at the end of the day that determines weight gain or loss and if you eat beforehand, you’ll exercise harder, thus burning more calories overall.
#3 Do A Form Check Ever 4-6 Weeks
It’s also a must that you are making sure to regularly assess your form. While you may have started out your workout protocol using good form, it’s very common for people to start moving out of good form as time goes on and they start to get lazy.
Instead, make an effort every 4-6 weeks to deload the weight and check out your form. If you aren’t performing an exercise correctly, make some changes so that you are.
#4 Add Intensity Slowly
Finally, make sure that you abide by the 10% rule. This rule means that you should only be adding 10% intensity at a time. This could be the speed in which you do your runs, the amount of weight you lift, or the total time volume of exercise you do.
This way, you are allowing your body a chance to adapt and to the increase and it won’t be as overwhelmed and at a risk for injury.
So keep these quick tips in mind and you should be able to move about your workout routine, staying injury free.
