Hello Everyone. Today’s article is a guest post from St John’s Supplies
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There is nothing worse than drumming up the motivation to get or keep fit only for injury to stop you in your tracks, training with an injury is dangerous enough but practising poor fitness technique can lead to injuries too and if these occur when lifting weights or running flat out, the damage can last even longer. Here are the top 5 tips for avoiding an injury when you train:
1. Know Yourself
One of the biggest mistakes that anybody can make when they are working out is to copy others, although it is important to learn from what others do you have to understand your own your own strengths, weaknesses and capabilities before you begin. When stretching start at a comfortable position and use supports, when lifting weights start light and work up and when doing cardio make sure to limit your speed and distance, as you feel stronger and more comfortable than you can increase your workload and decrease the chance of overdoing it and ultimately injuring yourself.
2. Gender
There is much to be said about the impact gender has on the way we train, and there are scientific studies which show that men and traditionally better equipped to activities such as weightlifting which require a rigid plane of motion and women are better with a diagonal or multiple plane of motion which is found in exercises such as cycling, yoga or Pilates.
3. Warm Up, Cool Down
The warm up and the cool down part of any exercise are perhaps the most important tools in terms of preventing injury, the act of exercise is when you make the conscious effort to push the body, it is only fair that the body is therefore ready to face such exertion. By stretching and slowly raising the heart rate you are warming up the muscles so that they can best do their job failure to do this and you could cause serious long term damage to the body. Of all the injuries it is possible to do whilst exercising a very high percentage are muscular, warming up properly can prevent this.
4. Variation
So you’re planning on running a marathon, you want to first become comfortable at running, then at running longer distances, then doing those distances at speed. You may feel that the best way to train is to just keep running, after all practise makes perfect. The problem however is that you can set yourself up for an injury as you ‘over’ exercise the same muscle groups. It is therefore advised that you mix your training up, start with a run, then try some weights and then perhaps a low impact exercise such as yoga; all three will help in their ways, cardiovascular, strengthening and stretching of the muscles.
5. Hire a Personal Trainer
For those who are more serious about keeping fit, you may want to hire a personal trainer. There are many benefits to this and one of the ,main ones is that you can significantly reduce the chances of injury as you are correctly shown how to exercise. A good trainer will assess your general fitness, tailor a balanced plan that will allow you to get fit without the risk of overworking certain parts of the body and help you to progress your training at a safe and structured speed. If an injury starts to develop then it may be that they can alter the training plan to allow recovery.
For those that do suffer an injury when in training then it is always best to get a medical opinion before resuming training, it is also possible to buy a range of muscle support and braces to help you get back into the swing of things, of the many suppliers www.stjohnsupplies.co.uk offer some of the best medical equipment.