Sports injury prevention principles

The core principles of sports injury prevention are essentially the three underlying logics of "don't push boundaries, don't omit pre-steps, and don't ignore signals." There is no absolutely universal standard action formula. All methods must be adapted to your physical condition, type of exercise, and current scene.

To be honest, don’t take the chicken blood of “breaking through yourself” as a rule of thumb for exercise. Your body boundaries are not fixed values ​​at all. Take the topic that has been quarreling in the strength training circle for several years. One group firmly believes that "progressive overload is the core of muscle building, and gritting one's teeth and hitting the weight is the only way to go." The other group insists that "movement patterns take precedence over weight, and stop as soon as there is pain." Both sides have professional players who endorse it, and no one can convince the other. I used to know an enthusiast who had been practicing for 3 years. His deadlift limit was supposed to be 170kg. He stayed up all night that day to change the plan. When he got hot after get off work, he went to do 180kg. His waist became soft when he was halfway through the lift, and he lay down with a herniated disc for three months. Later, the rehabilitation therapist calculated for him that his core activation was 30% worse than usual that day. The so-called "maximum weight" had long exceeded his body limit that day, and it was beyond the power of willpower to make up for it. If I slept for 8 hours the day before, I could squat 120kg. After staying up late, I might be able to squat 80kg to my waist. There is no shame in lowering the weight at this time.

Many people actually feel the boundaries very accurately, but in the end they fall into "too much trouble", which is what we call insufficient front-end redundancy. Talking about warm-up, running circles are still arguing: one group says that you must dynamically stretch for more than 15 minutes to fully activate the hip, knee, ankle, and hamstring muscles before increasing the intensity. The other group says that a slow warm-up of two kilometers is enough. Static stretching will reduce muscle explosiveness and easily cause strain. Last year I ran the Xiamen Marathon. There was a young man standing next to me. He took off his coat and rushed to the starting point. He said that he never warmed up when running 10 kilometers, and his body was too tired. As a result, he cramped and squatted on the side of the road and retired from the race just after 5 kilometers. Later during the chat, I found out that the wind at the beach that day was only 12 degrees. He didn’t warm up and his muscle temperature couldn’t be raised at all. His usual experience was directly ineffective in certain situations. In fact, both sides are right. If you are practicing interval running or sprinting, you must activate the ankle joints and the back of the thighs in one step. If you are just jogging for 3 kilometers in a walking style, it is absolutely fine to slowly increase the speed as a warm-up. The key point is that you have to give your body enough time to adapt. Don't just put the oil on the floor when the car is cold, which will cause the engine to stall easily.

The first two are to prevent problems before they happen. If there are signs of discomfort, don’t bear it. Turning the feedback into a protective patch is the key to long-term exercise. Regarding pain after exercise, there has always been a discrepancy between folk opinions and the views of the rehabilitation academic community: many old-school fitness people will say that "delayed soreness is normal, and pain indicates that you have practiced well." But now more and more rehabilitation practitioners will emphasize that "tingling, numbness, and joint snapping pain are definitely not normal signals." When I was practicing shoulder presses, I always felt a clicking sound in my shoulders, and there was a pinprick-like pain when I exerted force. My friend who practiced with me said that it was because the joints were not open, and that it would be cured if I practiced more. As a result, I went to have an MRI scan for half a month after the pain, and there was already fluid accumulation under the acromion. Later, I adjusted the grip distance and did 15 rotator cuff external rotation activations before each shoulder press. The pain disappeared in less than half a month. Don't attribute all pain to "training to the point". Muscle soreness can be relieved by resting for two days. If the pain in joints and ligaments is hard to bear, there is a high probability that you may not be able to return to the sports field even after three months of training.

In fact, after all is said and done, is there any absolute golden rule for preventing sports injuries? You see, professional athletes have dedicated rehabilitation specialists who follow them 24 hours a day. Strain injuries are inevitable, and there is no need for ordinary people to follow the standard templates online. Feel your body's temperament more often. Don't hold on when you are in a bad condition. Don't skimp on the warm-up time you should spend. If something feels wrong, stop and adjust it. It's more effective than any protective gear that costs thousands. Oh, by the way, if you are really injured, don’t search Baidu and treat it yourself. It is better to find a reliable rehabilitation practitioner to evaluate it than anything else. Don’t turn a minor injury into an old problem that will follow you for a lifetime - after all, we exercise to have fun, not to make ourselves suffer, right?