Balance Fitness Tips Functional Strength
April 26th, 2022
How to Avoid an Injury
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While injury isn’t always avoidable, you can reduce your risk, which will allow you to continue working toward your health and fitness goals — without pain holding you back. Here’s how to do that:
1. Do the Right Exercises
The right exercises depend on your goals, health, and fitness level. Doing exercises that are too much or not right for you can cause more harm than good.
For example, doing weighted squats before you’ve built up enough leg strength to lift the weight can cause back pain. This is just one of thousands of similar examples to illustrate just how important it is to do the right exercises and build up gradually.
2. Utilize Proper Technique
Proper form and technique are key for injury prevention. Performing an exercise incorrectly can end up loading the wrong muscles and joints, and increase your risk of injury.
If you aren’t sure how to perform a certain exercise, it pays to learn. When you’re ready, the Nielsen Fitness team is here to help you get your form down-pat, as well as guide you toward your goals.
3. Screen for Weaknesses
Muscle tightness and imbalances are often injuries waiting to happen. Luckily, an expert, such as our trainers at Nielsen Fitness, can easily screen for any imbalances and weaknesses, prescribing the right corrective exercises to balance things out and set you up for injury-free success.
In fact, research even shows how correcting muscle imbalances can improve performance in an athlete’s training program.
Additionally, an old injury can lead to muscle tightness or imbalance. Scar tissue after an injury has healed can impact motor movement patterns, proprioception, and balance, interfering with your muscles’ ability to move in harmony. However, working with a professional can help you overcome these weaknesses and achieve your goals.
4. Find The Balance
When we get excited about a goal, it’s tempting to go full-throttle towards it. Yet, when it comes to health and fitness, too-much-too-soon is an excellent way to land yourself with an injury and/or pain.
Instead, focus on finding a balance. Make sure you mix together sufficient cardio and weight lifting, and paying attention to intensity and number of reps and sets. You’ll also want to ensure you take rest days, which gives your body time to recover and come back stronger than before.
5. Engage in Active Recovery
When used correctly, active recovery (which involves performing low-intensity exercise following a strenuous workout) can help accelerate your healing post-workout and improve your performance.
For instance, if you’ve just completed a leg workout, you might benefit from walking or using a foam roller later in the day to promote greater blood-flow and enhanced recovery.
6. Listen to Your Body
The bottom line: your body is an intelligent machine that will tell you what it needs. If you’re feeling overly fatigued, you probably need rest. If you feel pain, your body is trying to let you know something is wrong. Tune into it and listen to it. Doing so could mean the difference between injury or not.
If you’re unsure how to approach your fitness goal or getting back in shape, don’t hesitate to reach out to the Nielsen Fitness team. With virtual personal training and offering some of the best personal trainers in Toronto, our team is here to help. Allow us to guide you and cheer you on toward success.
