Common Workout Injuries – Introduction
What are the most common workout injuries and how can you avoid them?
While working out is one of the best things you can do for your health, longevity, weight, and appearance, it can also cause injuries.
Thankfully, workout injuries are relatively rare, but when they strike, they can force you to take time off from training.
This is frustrating because, aside from the pain, you’ll also lose fitness, strength, and muscle mass.
The good news is that because of something called “muscle memory,” you’ll regain your lost fitness and strength in less time than it took you to develop it.
This is because much of the physiological architecture built during your initial workouts stays in place forever.
As such, your body adapts more quickly the second time around.
Still, being injured is a frustrating loss of weeks or months of training time, so it’s always best to try and avoid getting hurt if you can.
This article reveals some of the most common workout injuries and how to prevent them.
The 6 Most Common Workout Injuries
#1. Knee Injuries
Whether you are a cardio junkie or the king of the squat rack, your knees take a lot of punishment during your workouts.
The knee joint has to support a lot of weight and is prone to wear and tear, not to mention knee pain.
The good news is that exercise is generally good for the knee joint, even if it does cause some damage to the hyaline cartilage that coats the ends of your bones.
Strong muscles mean more stable joints, and that can help alleviate a lot of knee problems.
Common knee joint injuries include cartilage tears, damaged ligaments, worn cartilage, arthritis, and inflammation of the quadriceps tendons.
Avoid these problems by:
- Warming up thoroughly
- Going easy on high-impact training, especially if you are overweight
- Training your quadriceps and hamstrings equally
- Wearing supportive shoes
- Using knee sleeves if appropriate
- Not squatting deeper than is comfortable
- Strengthening your hips and glutes
- Losing weight if necessary
#2. Hip Workout Injuries
Like your knees, your hips have to support a lot of weight.
As such, they’re also prone to wear and tear.
However, their natural mobility means that the hips don’t tend to get injured as easily as the knees.
That said, you can injure your hips if you abuse them, e.g., by doing overly deep lunges or otherwise trying to stretch too far.
Groin strains are a catch-all name for muscle injuries in and around the hips.
Common hip injuries include worn cartilage and arthritis, ligament damage, muscle strains, tendon inflammation, and labrum (socket) tears.
Avoid these problems by:
- Warming up thoroughly
- Improving your hip mobility and flexibility
- Sitting less and moving more
- Strengthening your glutes, abductors, and adductors
- Taking care not to lunge or squat too deeply or spread your knees too far apart
#3. Lower Back Workout Injuries
Lower back pain is very common and affects most adults at some point.
Prolonged sitting combined with a weak core and the general complexity of the area means that the lower back is easily hurt.
A lot of people have a weak lower back because of sedentarism, making lower back injuries even more likely.
Improper form increases the risk of injury.
Likely lower back injuries include muscle strains and intervertebral disc damage.
The spinal ligaments are also prone to injury.
Because the back is involved in almost every movement you perform, injuries to this area can be very debilitating.
Avoid these problems by:
- Warming up properly
- Sitting less and moving more
- Not rounding your lower back when lifting
- Getting and staying in good posture
- Strengthening your core and learning how to brace effectively
- Wearing a weightlifting belt if appropriate
- Minimizing spinal compression, i.e., not doing too many heavy squats
- Mobilizing your spine
- Learning to deadlift correctly and using proper technique whenever you lift anything
#4. Shoulder Workout Injuries
If there is an award for the joint most likely to cause problems to exercisers, the shoulder should get it.
After all, you can’t train your upper body without using your shoulders.
As such, shoulder joint problems are very common.
Shoulder injuries are typically caused by overuse or joint instability, with muscle imbalances also being a problem.
The shoulder joint is very complex, and there is a lot that can go wrong with it.
Common shoulder joint problems include rotator cuff injuries, muscle tears, tendon inflation, labrum tears, and articular surface wear and rear.
Avoid these problems by:
- Warming up thoroughly
- Including rotator cuff exercises in your workouts
- Not doing behind-the-neck presses and pulldowns
- Balancing vertical pushes and pulls and horizontal pushes and pulls
- Learning how to stabilize or “set” your scapulae before any upper body movement
- Stretching your pecs and lats regularly
- Working on your posture
- Not doing too many bench presses or push-ups
#5. Elbow Workout Injuries
Elbow joint injuries are usually the result of overuse.
That’s because the elbow is a simple joint that only performs two movements – flexion and extension.
However, it has to do these movements during every upper body pushing and pulling exercise.
As such, elbow injuries can take a long time to heal because it’s hard to train without bending and straightening your arms.
The most common elbow problems are inflammation of the tendons of the muscles that control this joint, specifically the biceps and triceps.
Depending on the areas affected, these may be classed as tennis elbow or golfer’s elbow.
Avoid these problems by:
- Warming up thoroughly
- Using different grips to add variety to your workout, i.e., underhand, overhand, neutral, wide, and narrow
- Using but not abusing thick grip exercises
- Not overextending your elbows during pulling exercises
- Not locking your elbows during pushing exercises
- Wearing elbow sleeves if appropriate
#6. Wrist Workout Injuries
Wrist injuries are probably the least common, which considering the amount of weight they support during things like bench presses and shoulder presses, is quite surprising.
However, they can occur, and the most common cause is failure to keep the wrist straight.
This can be an issue during most pressing exercises and unavoidable during push-ups and front squats.
Most wrist injuries are strains, although overuse injuries are also possible.
Avoid these problems by:
- Warming up thoroughly
- Adopting a neutral wrist whenever possible
- Wearing wrist wraps if appropriate
- Stretching your forearms regularly
- Learning to use a thumbless grip to make it easier to keep your wrists straight
- Working on your grip and forearm strength
General Tips for Avoiding Workout Injuries
Because the mechanisms for most injuries are very similar (i.e., overuse, instability, excessive range of motion, etc.), it stands to reason that there are general actions you can take that will reduce your chances of getting injured.
These include:
Warm-up – always
Warming up should be at the top of your to-do list for every workout.
Light cardio, mobility, and dynamic stretching will raise your core temperature, increase blood flow into your working muscles, increase muscle elasticity and contractility, and lubricate your joints.
While there is no guarantee that warming up will prevent all injuries, it should lower the risk.
Increase training intensity and volume gradually
Doing too much too soon is a GREAT way to hurt yourself.
Avoid overloading your muscles and joints too fast by starting easy and increasing the volume and intensity of your workouts gradually over several weeks.
You should come away from your first few workouts feeling like you could have done more and not that you have nothing left to give.
Do not ignore pain
Pain is your body’s way of saying that there is something wrong.
Ignoring pain invites injury.
There is a vast difference between exercise discomfort, e.g., muscle fatigue and shaking, and the pain that says something is wrong.
The former is inevitable, and the latter is to be avoided.
If something you are doing hurts, either during or after, you should stop.
A painful workout is no more productive than a mildly uncomfortable one.
Don’t force movements that feel unnatural
Everybody’s body is different.
As such, there are movements that some people can do that others cannot.
For example, very deep squats are fine for some but risky for others.
Unfortunately, most exercise advice is aimed at entire populations, and we’re all expected to be able to do the same movements.
So, squat as deep as your hips and knees allow, walk or cycle if you find running uncomfortable, skip the bench press if it bothers your shoulders, and forget about sit-ups if they bother your lower back.
Listen to your body and let it guide you.
Just because an exercise is popular or looks cool doesn’t mean you need to do it.
Train around and not through injuries (if safe to do so)
You may not need to take a complete break from your workouts to allow some injuries to heal.
For example, if your lower back hurts, you could try doing leg extensions or leg curls instead of squats.
While this is not ideal, it’ll probably be preferable to not exercising at all.
However, there is a big difference between working around and working through a problem, and you need to know the difference.
Working through an injury could mean making it worse or delaying your recovery.
So, around is good, through is bad!
Seek professional advice
There is a lot of information on the internet about workout injuries, and some of it is good, while some of it is bad.
Sadly, it’s almost impossible to tell the difference!
Injuries can be hard to self-diagnose, and your chosen treatment could even make things worse.
So, if you ARE unlucky enough to hurt yourself, and you aren’t better within a couple of days, seek out hands-on medical advice so you can get a proper diagnosis and learn the best way to treat and recovers what ails you.
An accurate diagnosis could save you from weeks or even months of improper self-treatment.
Play the long game
Remember that working out and getting in shape are long-term projects.
Exercise is something you should plan on doing in some form for the rest of your life.
As such, you need to play the long game when choosing your exercises and workouts.
A high-risk exercise might give you good results today, but that doesn’t mean you’ll still be able to do it next week, next month, or next year.
In contrast, a more conservative approach might mean slower progress, but you’ll be able to do it for many years to come.
So, forget high-risk, short-term exercise strategies and plan for the long haul if you want to keep your risk of workout injuries to the minimum.
Common Workout Injuries – Wrapping Up
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or so the saying goes.
In other words, it’s better to avoid getting injured and not need treatment than need treatment after the fact.
While not all injuries are avoidable, you can reduce your risks by not doing risky exercises and workouts, increasing your workload gradually, and listening to your body.
And if you ARE unlucky enough to get hurt, rest up to give healing time to happen, and seek professional advice if you need more help.
The internet is NOT a good place to get your injuries diagnosed.
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