Staying Injury Free
With life being so fast paced; long working hours, stressful jobs, kids to take care of, and with not a lot of spare time more often than not we can soon get into a routine of missing workouts, cramming them into the weekends or rushing through them.
Because of this we find ourselves just trying to get in what we can, which more often than not means we end up skipping the warm up and just getting straight into a high intensity workout after being sat at your desk for 8hrs then at the end of the rushed workout we also skip the cool down, rush back to work without any food. Is it any wonder we start to get little niggley injuries?
Plan ahead
The most important tip that I can give with any aspect of training is planning ahead of time. Look at your week ahead, if you know that you have a busy week, then you are much better reducing the number of times you train and focusing on full body workouts rather than individual muscle groups. 1: You will burn more calories doing big full body exercises than isolation exercises and 2: If unfortunately you end up not being able to train again that week well at least you trained everything and not just calfs.
Warm Up and Cool Down
Your warm up and cool down is just as important as your workout. When I was younger I used to be able to play football 5 days a week without even given it a second thought. However as we older it is apparent that I can’t get away with that anymore. It is Plain and Simple if you do not get your body prepped for exercise and cool down properly you will eventually develop tightness and muscular Knots which will pull on a certain areas, reducing range of movement, resulting in injury.
Foam Rolling
Before every workout I will usually jump on the bike for 4-5 minutes to get the blood flowing and to mobilise and wake up the joints. After this I want to release any knots or tightness I may have and I find foam rolling really helps with this. So I will spend 4-5 minutes on this. I will repeat foam rolling again at the end of my workout (mainly on the areas I have just worked). Follow the below Link for a great short video on Foam Rolling: http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/truth-about-foam-rolling
Stretching
I would advise not doing too much static long holding stretches prior to training but instead focus on dynamic mobility work instead. My whole warm up usually takes about ten minutes, and my cool down 5-10 minutes also. This may seem like a long time but trust me if you get injured your rehab will take longer than this, so make sure your factoring enough time to do this, even if it means missing that extra chest set.
Massage
For me massage really helps compliment my stretching and foam rolling. As the number of times you train increases and the intensity increases, you will find that you will become tighter and start to suffer more from D.O.M.S (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). That feeling you get when you wake up and feel like you’ve been hit by a train. Massage can really help get into those areas a foam roller just can’t quite hit. If you are based in Loughborough I highly recommend Nadias Holistics. Nadia is an extremely experienced Holistic therapist who can help you get to the route of your pain.
Sleep
Listen to your body, try not to train on empty. There is a difference between having that lazy feeling and being generally exhausted from lack of sleep. Sometimes you will have days where you just need to to suck it up and push through, but other times it’s important to listen to your body and take the day off rather than make yourself feel worse. You will become better at judging this the more experienced you become in training.
Rest Days
I often find that I train better on a Monday after having the weekend to rest. Your muscles need time to rebuild and replenish. I always recommend 2 rest days a week depending on your fitness level.