WORKOUT INJURIES

                        WORKOUT INJURIES

A workout injury can happen to anyone, no matter your experience or fitness level. Even walking can cause an injury.But you can significantly cut your risk of getting hurt by following certain workout people hurt themselves in all kinds of ways when they work out. Common workout injuries include:

• muscle pull and strain
• sprained ankle
• shoulder injury
• knee injuries
• shin splint
• tendinitis
• wrist sprain or dislocation
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• FOOT AND ANKLE

• Cause: When trying to explain foot and ankle injuries, lets start at the top of the body. "People spend their days in front of their computer with rounded shoulders.hen your shoulders are rounded and you stand up, your weight falls to the front of your foot," . Take that misplaced center of gravity and put it i running shoes, which naturally tip you forward with a heel higher than the toe, and your feet and ankles start to bear the brunt of any impact.
  
  Prevention: "You should look for a running shoe that isn't too high in the heel, or try a walking shoe, cross trainer or tennis shoe," . By helping spread the impact to the whole foot, you'll prevent problems like plantar fasciitis, achilles tendonitis, anterior compartment syndrome (a compression in the front of the ankle), lateral compression syndrome (a compression at the side of the ankle) and bunions.

  KNEE

  Cause: That damn desk job again, unfortunately. "We don't use our hip muscles during the day. Then we decide to go kickbox or do bootcamp," says. The result is injury to the . . . knee? "If our feet aren't stable, due to improper footwear, and our hip muscles aren't strong, the knee gets all the stress," , who says that leg extensions, curls, and presses don't help resolve the problem because they don't strengthen the muscles of the feet and hips.
  
  
  Prevention: "A better exercise would be lunges. With a lunge your hip and ankle are bending together, stabilizing and strengthening the knee," . To get even more benefit, do lunges both forwards and backwards, then side to side (also known as "step and squats").

  LOWER BACK

  Cause: Three strikes and your day job is officially in the dog house in terms of your physical health. "If someone is rounded throughout the day in their upper back, and then they go to the gym and do an overhead shoulder lift standing, their upper back cannot extend properly. They straighten and arch upward from their lower back, which has a nervous breakdown [anything from soreness to more permanent injury] because it's getting all the stress,".
  
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  Prevention: Remember to stretch and strengthen your upper back to compensate for all that hunching you do at the office. i suggest super-setting in straight-armed wall squats in with the rest of your lifting regimen. "Sit against a wall. Flatten your lower back into the wall, by tilting your pelvis under you. Straighten your arms in front of you, and try to raise arms up to your ears, without letting a gap form behind your lower back,". And whenever you can, exercise standing up—really, you've sat enough at the office, right? "Standing helps you engage bigger muscles in your body," 
  SHOULDER
  Cause: If you haven't been convinced to hang up your mouse and pick up a hard hat, this just might do it. That carpal tunnel you're complaining about 9-5 could contribute to a gym injury after-hours. "Your arms have to internally rotate when you type, which puts pressure on the shoulders," . "Then you go to the gym and do chest press, shoulder press, pushups, all also with your arms rotated in," . The outcome? Supraspinatus tendonitis, an overuse injury of the rotator cuff.
  
  Prevention: You need to externally rotate your arms to balance your shoulders, and a great way to do that is by rowing with cables. Grab the cables in front of you and pull the arms back, rotating your palms away from you and behind you, .
  NECK
  
  Prevention: Clearly, when doing the bench press, make sure your lower back and neck are supported properly. Then, avoid putting additional stress on your neck with exercises that cause you to raise your arms over your head, especially if you've just put in a 12-hour day. Finally, strengthen your mid and upper back—and improve your posture—by doing reverse shrugs. "Sit at the lat pull down. Grab the bar in front of you and do straight arm pull downs. Pull down just the shoulder blades—not the arms—and go just slightly in front of you for three to four inches. You'll feel it in your lower traps—which, once strong, will help you maintain your posture—and health—whether you're at the office or at the gym.
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  Cause: The other four areas being out of whack lead to a misalignment in your neck, . If you sit with rounded shoulders, your neck follows your upper back, but then your eyes need to look at the screen, so you arch your neck and you get pain. As if work wasn't a pain in the neck enough, you get to the gym and that poor posture follows you all the way to the bench press, where the real trouble starts, when you're lying on the bench but your back isn't flush with the pad. A lack of mobility and extension in your upper back will put stress on your lower back and neck,.

Injury is always just ahead for the sloppy weight trainer. One of the finest ways to halt your advancement in the fitness center is to endure a careless injury. This article's chief function is to guarantee your safety, so that you get the most out of your workouts while avoiding injuries and/or other difficulties. If you do sustain an injury, it doesn't mean that you should stop working out, but it does mean that you should take the right precautions to safely and effectively do your workouts pain free. Here are the ten most common causes of bodybuilding injuries:

1. Faulty technique. The most common weight training injuries are associated with poor workout technique. Faulty technique can tear or jerk a muscle, or rip fragile connective tissue faster than you can strike a match. Every person's body has very detailed biomechanical pathways. Arms and legs can only move in certain ways, particularly if you're stress loading a limb with weight.

2. Lifting too heavy. Injuries can result from guys trying to lift a very heavy weight that is not within their capacity. They will start curling the weight up and end by using the momentum of their upper bodies to fully curl the bar to the finish point. A large amount of pressure is placed on the lower back and shoulder joints when this happens, as it is no longer the muscles that are pulling the weight up, but the speed of the movement.

Using too much weight in an exercise is a high-risk proposition rife with injury potential. How do you know when it's too much? If you can't manage a weight as you lower it, if you can't hold a movement within its biomechanical boundaries, and if you have to jerk or heave a weight in order to lift it. An unrestrained barbell or dumbbell takes on a mind of its own; the weight follows the laws of gravity and looks for the floor.

3. Not warming up properly. Be sure to always incorporate warm ups, stretching, and cooling down into your program. This will prevent your chances of injury by increasing your blood flow and prepping your muscles for the work they are about to do. Using good lifting form is essential not only to work your muscles properly, but also to avoid injury.

4. Training problem areas. If something hurts while you're doing a particular workout try to find another type of exercise that takes the pressure off that area. For instance if you have shoulder troubles keep away from the bench press for awhile and use the chest press machine at a higher seat level or use the Smith machine to stabilize the exercise.

5. Cheating. Bouncing, wrenching and grabbing movements do not get faster results, yet they do encourage grave injury. Cheating doesn't impress anyone, it ruins your workouts, and it makes you look stupid.

Cheating and forced reps are advanced techniques that allow the lifter to train beyond normal. The muscle is literally forced to develop as it is taken past the point of failure. Real world data proves that cheating movements work. Yet cheating, by definition, is unsafe. A cheating or forced rep incorrectly performed can push or pull the lifter out of the groove.

6. Stressing the same joints repeatedly. Many weight training injuries may be related to stressing the same joints repeatedly until muscular or tendinous failure occurs. Frequently working out to failure without any periodization or cycling of the intensity or length of the workouts adds to the possibility of developing tendonitis and other injuries.

7. Ignoring the experts. The primary exercise slip-up many people make is not looking for guidance. Always check with a doctor before starting a new exercise program. A good instructor can do a lot to get you on the right track from day one. Without help you could waste a lot of time and cause yourself unnecessary harm.

8. Improper breathing. Lifting weights causes a short-term rise in blood pressure, and holding your breath is a sure way to make it increase even more during exercise. Though a lot of people dispute whether or not you should breathe out on the exertion or not, the main thing to bear in mind is to keep it controlled. Not properly controlling breathing has caused many people to get nauseous and throw up, or even pass out during intense training.

9. Missing or inept spotters. If you go heavy or practice power lifts, at some point you will need spotters. There's nothing wrong with needing some help once in a while to get to that last rep. It means that you're working to the max. A reliable spotter should always prepare for you to miss the lift. At some point he can give you what help you need to finish that rep.

10. Degeneration, or wear and tear. Some muscles, such as those in the shoulder, receive very little blood supply. The tendons of the rotator cuff muscles receive very little oxygen and nutrients from blood supply, and therefore are particularly susceptible to deterioration with aging. This lack of blood supply is also a reason why a shoulder injury can take quite a lot of time to heal.

If you are worn-out, unwell, or sense that you are overtraining, rather than aggravate your condition by going to the fitness center, stay home and get better. If you have had injuries, remember to do your stretches in the morning and/or before bed, as well as any core exercises recommended by your doctor. Once you know the do's and don'ts of bodybuilding, you will achieve your goals faster and better without any plateaus or injuries to set you back.

 11.Dieting impatiently. A lot of bodybuilders hop from one diet to another without ever giving the first program adequate time to work. It takes no less than three weeks for your body to become accustomed to nutritional changes. You can look forward to seeing noticeable changes after about 21 days if you start a high carb, modest protein, and low fat diet with reduced calories in order to lose fat.

12.Believing that real men stick to their diets 365 days a year. Most people say that to build muscle or lose fat you should stay on your diet 364 days a year. For the majority of bodybuilders all that would take place would be an intermittent all out splurges – eating six chocolate bars in two minutes and being afraid of the next meal. It’s better to plan a cheat day every Sunday where you can have a Danish pastry or chocolate bar that you have been longing for all through the week.

13.Not eating enough. The purpose after all is to pack on mass. If you aren’t eating adequately, what exactly do you intend to pack on? So devour more calories. To preserve your bodyweight you need to put away 10 calories per pound of bodyweight. This is a line that can stretch for 500 calories. So consuming at least that much more is a necessity, but also for each Joule of energy you use you require calories to replace that expenditure.

14.Eating too much. We all know the biology. Surplus calories are stored as body fat. For overeating to be so close to the top of the dietary blunder list is no error. Building muscle is the number one objective of bodybuilding and body fat is the bodybuilder’s number one foe. If a layer of lard hides your muscles, what’s the sense of putting so much blood, sweat and tears into them?

15.Not eating frequent, small meals. You should be eating five to six meals per day ranging from 300-1000 calories dependent on your size and targets, for the best results in terms of elevated energy levels, reduced body fat, muscle enlargement, and first-class gastrointestinal health. You should also have a hoard of meal replacement shakes, which have the precise nutrient profiles that you require.

16.Late night snacking. Although comfort food seems to taste better right before bed, it is also more prone to stick with us when eaten late at night. It has been confirmed that not eating three hours before bed decreases fat storage during the night. Stop eating for the day no later than 7 p.m. if you go to bed at 10 p.m. Once you have made this a habit you will be overjoyed at the long-term fat loss.

17.Judging by the scale. People on a diet are often shocked when they find out how much they’re losing, but as long as it’s fat and not muscle, it’s okay. Of course, the opposite holds true with the weight gainer. Gaining three pounds of muscle is great, while gaining 2.8 pounds of fat and 0.2 pounds of muscle is not. Keep in mind: a caliper and the mirror are your judges, not the scale!

18.Not setting goals. The chief mistake a lot of people make is starting a fat loss program without really making a decision. It may appear unimportant, but having a meaningful reason is vital to success. During moments of weakness, when your healthy meals look too bland and all you want is takeout, when you decide you’re too tired to workout, and when you just don’t feel like it, that your decision comes into play.

19.Not eating enough protein. For the past half century or so scientists using rudimentary techniques and inadequate study design with inactive people have held firm to the conviction that bodybuilders, strength athletes of various types, runners, and other highly energetic people do not need any more protein than the average couch potato. The fact is, active people do indeed require far more protein than the RDA to keep from losing hard earned muscle tissue when dieting or increasing muscle tissue during the off season.

20.Taking “fat-free” at face value. Don’t take for granted that the tag “fat-free” gives you freedom to eat as much as you want of something without gaining weight, because on the whole you’ll still be consuming a lot of calories, many of them empty of other valuable nutrients.Fat-free means that the product you just picked up has less than half a gram of fat per serving.