One of the worst things that could happen while you’re making great progress with exercise, is getting injured and having to pause your training.
Accidents happen everywhere and while we can’t prevent all of them, we can reduce the risk of harm that our bodies experience through preparation.
Some of these steps are quite obvious but often overlooked due to their simplicity or skipped by those who don’t deem them necessary. If you’d like to enjoy a thriving fitness journey, we urge you to consider all steps as well as the extent to which you apply them to your own training.
7 steps to injury-free training:
Don’t copy pro athlete workouts
You may want to get advice on how athletes achieve and maintain fitness but we’d advise against copying athlete workouts unless they have been tailored to your fitness level. Since athletes spend more time training, their speed, endurance level, and ability to perform certain workouts will be higher than most. For example, if you hardly ever run, entering for a marathon is probably not the best idea.
Prepare for physical activity through muscle activation
One of the best ways to positively impact your performance is by waking up the muscles that you’ll be using for your intended activity. Resistance bands for example, are great to use before heavy loaded exercises
Avoid overtraining
Consistent training is key but performing the same workouts over and over without rest may do more harm than good. As high-intensity, full-body strength sessions are enjoyed at our studios, we recommend only one EMS training session per week to ensure that members have adequate recovery time between sessions.
Exercise with a trainer to assess and improve muscle strength
Expert personal training helps you exceed your limits without hurting yourself. You can also speed up progress when your body is accurately assessed and guided through movements and training intensities that will work for you and your goals.
Cross-train for varied muscle movements
At BODYTEC, we encourage members to maintain an active lifestyle outside of the studio. Switching up your routine will allow your body to experience various levels of intensity and movement types. Whether you opt for hiking, cycling, running, swimming, dancing or horse riding, ensure that you are not overexerting yourself and enjoying your activity fully.
Gradually increase workout intensity levels
If you’ve seen the memes about going from 0 to 100, you’ll know that guilting yourself into an intense workout because you haven’t trained in a while, has exactly the opposite result of what you intend. Don’t make the mistake of powering up your session to an intensity level that your body cannot handle, which then leads to injury and extended downtime.
Make sleep the most important activity
In her best-selling wellness book, Thrive, Arianna Huffington stresses the importance of rest for not just productivity but overall wellbeing. She highlights how much more sleep pro athletes get – in order to train more and recover faster. Studies also show that a lack of sleep impairs judgment so if you want to be a better decision-maker, try and get some good quality sleep.
Which of these steps haven’t you applied to your routine yet? Share the link to this post with someone who needs to read about injury-free training.
