If you’re exercising regularly, there is always the chance that you’ll get injured. A lot of people that have a good fitness routine can quickly lose a lot of progress if an injury puts them out of action for a while. It’s also fairly common for people to make their injuries worse because they’re too eager to get back into working out and they push themselves too hard before they’re properly recovered. If you do get an injury, it’s important that you listen to the advice of your doctor and wait until you’re ready before you start working out again, and always take it slowly. It’s also important that you take steps to avoid injury in the first place. You’re never going to be able to avoid it completely and sometimes, you can still get injured if you’re doing everything right. But taking the correct approach to workouts and preparing yourself properly can massively reduce the risk of injury. These are some of the best ways to protect yourself from injury when exercising.
Start Slowly
It’s important that you start slowly when you do any new exercise, especially if you’re just starting out or you’re going back to exercise after a long while of not doing anything. Your body isn’t equipped to go straight into strenuous exercise if you haven’t been training regularly and you’ll just end up hurting yourself. Always start slowly with low impact exercises and if you’re doing weights, start with a low weight and gradually increase it as you get stronger. Warming up properly is absolutely vital as well. If you go into the gym and just jump straight on a weight machine before your muscles are warmed up, you’re far more likely to get an injury because your muscles will be very stiff. It’s best to start off with some light cardio to get your heart rate up and then do a full body stretch before doing anything more strenuous. It only takes 5 minutes to warm up properly but if you skip it, you’ll give yourself a serious injury.
Get The Right Workout Gear
If you’re going to be working out regularly, you need to invest in some good workout gear. A good pair of shoes is the most important thing because you need proper support, especially if you’re running. Get yourself some good quality Nike running shoes or something similar. If you try to work out without proper shoes, all of the impact is being absorbed by your joints and over time, you’ll do a lot of damage. But a decent pair of shoes will absorb that impact and protect your body. Compression clothing is good as well because it compresses the muscles and increases blood flow. This helps with recovery and stops you from getting sore, strained muscles after a workout. It can also help to improve performance because increased blood flow delivers more oxygen to your muscles and that will help you to work out for longer.
Rest Days
When you exercise, you put your muscles under strain and they need time to repair themselves, that’s why rest days are so important. A lot of people are keen to lose weight and get in shape and they think that the best way to do that is to work out as much as possible, so they hit the gym every day without taking a rest day. The thing is, that might work for a week or two, but then you’re going to start getting injured because you haven’t given your body time to repair itself. As a general rule, you should be taking 2 rest days each week if you want to work out on the other 5 days. *This is a partnership post.
Train Different Areas
As well as taking rest days, you also need to change up your workouts to give your muscles time to rest. Even if you take 2 rest days a week, you’re still going to injure yourself if you spend the other 5 days working your arms and chest. If possible, you should try not to work the same muscle groups 2 days in a row, that will you give you more time to recover again. It’s also important if you want good all round fitness because focusing on one single area is only going to give you specific results in that area and your body will start to look disproportionate after a while.
Research Exercises Before Doing Them
Performing an exercise incorrectly with bad form is another easy way to hurt yourself, so it’s important that you research how to do new exercises before you try them out. On most of the machines in the gym, you’ll have instructions on the side. Always make sure to read through those instructions before you attempt to use the machines. If you’re really unsure of what you’re doing, it might be worth getting a few sessions with a personal trainer. If you tell them what your fitness goals are, they’ll be able to tell you which exercises are best for you and show you how to do them properly and safely.
Cool Down
Most people remember the warm up, but a lot of people forget to cool down properly, which is equally important if you want to avoid injuries. A bit of light cardio, like a fast walk on a treadmill, followed by a good stretch should help your muscles to cool down properly and reduce the chance of any injuries. Nutrition is a key aspect of your fitness routine because you need to make sure that your body is getting everything that it needs to recover properly and rebuild damaged muscles after a workout. A lot of people use protein shakes but you don’t necessarily have to do that if you don’t want to. Just make sure that you’re eating foods that contain a lot of protein after a workout. Meat and dairy are the most common sources but you can also add things like beans, nuts, and lentils to your diet for an extra protein hit. If you follow all of these steps properly every time you work out, your chances of injury are drastically reduced.
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