*By: Christi Shingara*
Whether you’ve been working out for years or are just starting a new fitness plan, workout injuries can happen anytime and anywhere. Especially as we get older, we may experience a loss of muscle and bone mass and are less agile, which, in turn, makes us more vulnerable to injury.
Here are a few tips to help you prevent injuries during exercise:
Warm-Up
Getting your muscle warmed up before exercising will prevent tear injuries. Cold muscles are less pliable and jumping right into a workout will definitely cause injury. Warm-up moves such as jumping jacks, leg lifts, and trunk twists are just a few dynamic moves to help you warm-up.
Learn Proper Technique
Executing your workout properly is the key to avoiding injury. Make sure you are doing the workout correctly by setting up a mirror in front of you so you can see how you are doing the workout. Improper form can not only cause major injury, but it will also exercise the wrong areas of the body. If you can’t keep proper form, learn an alternative way of doing the exercise and then build-up to more advanced positions.
Listen to Your Body
If you are in pain while you do certain exercises it is time to stop and listen to your body. It is better to back off from the exercise instead of continue in pain. It could cause an even worse injury. Evaluate what is causing the pain and readjust your workout.
Schedule “Rest” Days
Exercising everyday sounds like it would build muscles quicker and get you in shape, but actually, it is quite the opposite. Resting your muscles gives them to recuperate and rebuild. If you have intense workouts everyday it will tire out your muscles and make you more susceptible to injury. Resting after 3 to 5 workout days is recommended.
Cross-Training
Changing up your workout and exercising different muscles will help prevent injury because you will work different muscles and give other muscles a break. Doing the same kind of workouts and focusing on the same muscles will exhaust them and cause potentially injury. Cross-training also helps improve your overall strength.
Have tips to help prevent workout injury? Let me know in the comments below.
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