Learning from Pain: The Importance of Preventing Fitness Mistakes
Importance of avoiding fitness mistakes
You will never forget the first time that you hurt yourself in the gym. They can be unexpected at times. Mine was when I was around 17 and was brand spanking new to training. At that age, I thought, “If you are not training the upper body, then what are you doing?” and proceeded to go hard on my upper body, which led to overuse in my right forearm, which prevented me from gripping. It was annoying at the time, but it went a few days later.
Injuries are a normal occurrence in the gym, and it is near impossible to avoid them, but if you are a cup-half-full person, you can look at mistakes as a learning point rather than be annoyed about them. The fun part about an injury is exploring new movements and exercises you would not have previously.
You can still do things to reduce your likelihood of injury when training, as prevention is always better than cure. Here are some things people do which lead them to become injured.
Importance of a warm-up and reducing injury
Before starting your session, you should take part in some form of a warm-up. When I have suggested this to people in an open dialogue conversation, they always say, “I don’t have time for that; I want to get in and out.” Everyone's situation is different, and timing may be limited, but your warm-up does not have to take 10-15 mins.
A warm-up is what it says on the tin. A means to get the muscles warm: when muscles become warm, they become more pliable, which allows them to have a greater stretch, especially when load/weight is put through them. The warm-up also acts as a primer for the nervous system to ensure that the nerves are working at the right speed to ensure the muscles can contract and handle the load about to be placed on them. You can base your warm-up around what you're training.
Lower Body warm-up example:
2 minutes on a bike- Raise the pulse
World Greatest Stretch- Works the hips, hip flexors, and mid-back
Couch Stretch- Stretches the quadriceps
Begin squatting your warm-up weight and building up to your working set(s)
Upper body warm-up example:
Downward Dog Flow- Prep the shoulders and prime for pushing movements
½ Kneeling Kettlebell Windmill or Lying Side Arm Bar- Load the wrists, elbow, and shoulders as well as mid-back mobility
Begin warm-up sets of your first lift.
The warm-up component will take approximately 5 minutes to get better quality reps from the working sets. Just because you have not sustained an injury yet, it doesn't mean you are not susceptible to one, and you should avoid the mindset of “ I will cross that bridge when I come to it” because when that situation arises, will you know what to do? These are examples of a short warm-up you can do before your session if the timing is a limiting factor. If timing is not an issue, I would advise you to take a bit more time preparing and see the difference it can make to your lifts and your overall session.
Importance of resistance training and reducing injury
Resistance training can be the cause of injuries, but it can also be the best cure and the best means of prevention. When you resistance train, you stress the muscles, bones, tendons, and joints. In response to that stress, the body adapts to cope with that demand in the future. However, you can place too much stress on the body, leading to detrimental effects.
When training in the gym, you must gradually increase the weights you are lifting. It is very easy to let your ego take over and think you can handle a weight your body is not ready for. I had a client in the past who was comfortably squatting 90kg for three sets of 8. In one session, he came in, struggled to walk, and could hardly squat down. When I asked what happened, they told me they went to the gym with their friend, got caught up in the moment, and tried to squat well over 120kg.
The result was them not being able to train at the usual intensity and us spending more time nursing the injury. The injury was able to heal pretty quickly, but an aspect that you may not realise that plays a massive factor is psychology. When injured, you build up a fear of getting hurt again, which creates stress on the body; this stress can cause attentional changes, distraction and increased self-consciousness that can interfere with performance (Putukian, 2015).
Not only do you start battling with the physical challenge of the injury, but you also have to overcome the psychological hurdle of trusting your body to handle the weight/movement that previously injured you. This takes time and patience, and the best way to help this is to strip back the weight and rebuild the technique and your confidence with the lift.
Gradual weight increase will be the best way to prevent injuries and the psychological impacts that come with it.
Overreaching and lack of rest and recovery on injury
With most people I encounter in the gym, one of the first things I discover is that they are doing too much to achieve their goals and need to understand the importance rest and recovery have on their physical development. When you rest, you are not only allowing your muscles to recover from the training session but also allowing the muscles to adapt. This adaptation will enable you to lift heavier weights and, in turn, receive greater strength and muscle gains.
When rest is neglected, you limit the potential gains you could receive as your body goes through a period where it is detrained and susceptible to injury. The effects of this are not immediate but gradually build to the point where not only does the body ache, but you become lethargic, easily irritable, run down/ill, and unable to concentrate.
This is known as overreaching. Fortunately, the best way to counteract overreaching is by taking some time away from your training to allow the recovery process to take place. If you continually ignore the signs of overreaching, then you run the risk of being overtrained. When you are overtrained, it will take a longer period for you to recover, which means you spend less time training, which slows down your momentum of training and can lead to a delay in getting back to training as long hiatuses tend to make returning to training much more of a task.
Be intentional with your rest outside of training, and avoid the mindset that doing more is better, as it can leave you in a situation where you are putting your body in a vulnerable position, more susceptible to injury, and counterproductive to the muscle and strength-gaining process.
I hope this helps.
Till next time,
Myles
Bibliography
M.Putukian (2015) The psychological response to injury in student-athletes: a narrative review with a focus on mental health, Department of Athletic Medicine, University Health Services, Princeton University
