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Staying injury free

V

Viktor

Top Contributor
Just wondering really how you guys avoid and deal with injuries from weight lifting?

I tend to always have some sort of 'niggle' or other, some times I train through it and it goes away, other times I train through it and delays healing.

Paul George said in the Ask The Pro section 'Prehab is better than Rehab' and this is very, very true.

I've picked up injuries in a number of different ways : poor exercise form, not warming up, changing the grip slightly on the next set and sometimes for reason I just don't know.

There are a few 'older' guys like myself here on the forum and I would be very interested to hear how they 'manage' their bodies to remain injury free as possible. But input and views from everyone is all good. :)

So 'guys' what do you do - exercise, supplements, diet etc to reduce your injuries?
 
Well I'm not a guy but I've not been injured (yet). I think the most important thing is to listen to your body when you're training and if something starts niggling, you stop right away and decrease the weight. I think blokes do tend to let their egos get in the way sometimes. It's better to train with a light weight with good form than to lift a heavier weight and damage yourself - then you risk losing out on training full stop! A quick warm-up with some ballistic stretches and taking 5 minutes after training to do a combination of ballistic and static stretches works wonders for reducing injuries IMO.

I also get a sports massage every month to ease out any tightness from my muscles - my hams in particular get very tight and my shoulders too. Going to the sauna or steam room can help too, as will a light swim once or twice a week.
 
Good post Belinda - I was using 'guys' as the general form meaning 'everyone' :)

I am guilty of not stopping when I feel pain or dropping the weight, but it's more about denial than ego for me.
 
Well im only 21 so not really injury prone yet, but from some of the older guy I know, i still think HIT is a good way of avoiding injury. Depending how you do it, you've got pre-exhausting, generally less weight used but in a stricter fashion, and no throwing the weight about putting you joints and tendons at risk; you're controlling the weight
 
I think anyone who puts themselves under a bar with a substantial amount of weight will, even with good form, get injured in some way at some point. It comes with the territory.

I think you can foresee warning signs with experience - like when you just feel an extra warmup is needed, or the day you come to your first working set and you just know something aint right compared with the week before so you dont go hell for leather.

Anyone who is lifting substantial weights in order to overload their muscles and reckons they can do it injury free forever is just living in cloud cuckoo land. We just need to listen to our bodies more sometimes to get round the niggles imo.
 
Need to know when to rest and when you are ok to train through it.

If need to rest and choose to train through it for long periods with painkillers, stims or any other method it might seem hardcore at the time but will do you no fvours in the long run. That mentality has fcked me up.

Also like said above if lift heavy weight (esp if using aas) then injuries are inevitable for most people, sometimes it is out of your hands and will just happen not really any precaution you can take for this kind of thing.
 
Just some quick points as I'm on the road at the mo.

I have had a few minor injuries which have been quite painful/annoying. The worst of which was with my neck. The problems encountered on my neck and with my back from squatting and DL caused me to alter my strategy considerably.

The neck is particularly prone to slipping out of the usual groove (higher degrees of freedom than other bp), and a small shift would result in me pulling my neck and being laid up in agony.

Some points on injury reduction from training:

Superslow training across the form variations just to build some basic strength incase one slips out of the groove.
Awareness of the groove - building of mind muscle connection.
Building stabiliser muscles - eg chaos training, or vibration training. Using DB can help too.

I avoid 1RM on most exercises these days, using 3RM as my lowest rep range for testing and moreoft 5reps as lower bounds.
Gradual progression of different factors - load/reps/sets, so I know what my limits are, and I push my loads up gradually.

Knowing the twinge feeling and holding off at that point - I know when DL I get a twinge that comes up, and whereas in the past I may have carried on, these days I hold off and pick a different exercise.

J
 
the mind is a powerful thing and it can make the body do things its not ready to do

best thing to do is listen to your body know when to push it 110% and when to pull back abit
 
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