Some Common Injuries

Some of the most common injuries occur to those parts of the body that are also the hardest to repair.

Take it from my own experience with a back injury!

Many people who are using resistance training as their preferred form of fitness, will injure their shoulders or lower back more often than other parts of the body.

The shoulders are quite susceptible to injury as they are activated with many different exercises and some of these exercises such as the bench press can involve the use of substantial weight.

It is imperative that you do sufficient warm up exercises for your shoulders before you even start to lift the lightest of weights.

Shoulder injuries can take a very long time to mend and as they are used in so many exercises it will stop or hinder you from doing most upper body workouts.

Using weight machines can reduce the incidence of injury as the movement is controlled but you will be missing out in the strengthening the occurs will all the other muscles that are used for balance and control when using free weights such as dumbbells and barbells.

As you age it could be more beneficial to move from free weights to weight machines as we become more susceptible to injury as we age.

The lower back is another area of concern for many people both with resistance training and aerobic training.
Some of the mass building exercises such as squats can place big loads on the lower back and unless you are performing the exercises with the correct movements you will always be exposed to the risk of injury.

This is where a professional fitness trainer can help to ensure you are doing the exercises correctly.

Strengthening the abdominal muscles will help to support your lower back and this will also help to reduce the chance of injury to your back.

Steering Clear Of Injury

It is important to stay injury free as any injury can make you incapacitated for long periods of time and they can reoccur at later times disrupting your training.

Rather than trying to lift too much weight at the gym and risk injury, it would be better to reduce the weight and do more repetitions of the same exercise.

Stretching your muscles before a workout or other form or exercise such as a run or a walk will help to reduce the chance of injury.

It is always wise to check with your doctor before starting any exercise program if you have any doubts about any aspect of your health.

If you have had prior injuries to any parts of your body you might need to ‘work around’ these when planning your training program to ensure they aren’t aggravated and cause you to miss valuable training time.

With weight training you can, under some circumstances, still train parts of your body if you have injured other areas, but it is often difficult as resistance training usually involves the whole of the body.
Training with machines might be an option.

With walking and running it is obvious that damage to your legs will quickly put an end to your training so stretching your legs before and after exercise, particularly your hamstrings will help to eliminate problems.

If you do suffer an injury, you will need to determine whether it is wise to continue training, albeit with less intensity, or to rest completely until the injury has recovered completely.

Sometimes light exercise can help with recovery whereas other times it can delay your recovery and often make the problem worse.

It is times like this that professional advice from your doctor or fitness trainer will be invaluable.
You should never be training to the extent that you are susceptible to injury as injuries can reoccur throughout your life once a muscle, tendon or ligament has been damaged.

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Strengthening Your Heart With Exercise

With the incidence of heart disease on the increase, more people are turning to fitness training to help reduce their chances of problems later in life.

Apart from eating the right foods, there is nothing quite like fitness training to help us maintain a healthy heart.

Exercise of the body increases the heart rate and in doing so exercises the heart.

If you have had heart problems or your family has a history of heart problems then it is always wise to consult your family doctor before undertaking a fitness-training program.

There might be specific exercises that they will recommend you do to help any condition you might have.

You can get heart monitors relatively cheaply and these are a good way to keep a track of your heart rate and see that you are not over-taxing yourself.

A heart rate monitor will allow you to train at the optimum intensity for your requirements.

There are many different types of heart monitors and a corresponding range of prices.

There are heart monitors for specific purposes too where they have additional features to give you some idea of the calories that you might be burning when you exercise.

They can be worn on your wrist or around the chest and some of them are built into home gym equipment such as bikes, treadmills and elliptical trainers where the grips you hold on the equipment relate your heart information to a screen that you can observe while training.

The monitors that are strapped around your chest are generally the most accurate and they usually come with a watch like attachment that displays your heart rate reading.

The premium machines offer all types of data that can help you customize your training to your needs and it will be easier for you to track your progress and improve your health and fitness.