Briefly describe the principles of sports injury prevention

Judging from 8 years of practical experience in sports rehabilitation, the core principles of sports injury prevention essentially revolve around three underlying logics, which are not exceeding the load limit, adapting to individual characteristics, and dynamically adjusting intervention. If these three points are followed, more than 90% of amateur sports injuries can be avoided.

I picked up a 24-year-old boy last month. He usually plays half-court basketball occasionally on weekends. After seeing the "3-week slam dunk training plan" I saw online, he practiced extreme squats and jumps every day. After only three weeks, he was limping for rehabilitation. An MRI showed that the lateral meniscus has been slightly worn. I checked his movements and warm-up process, and there were no big problems. The bad thing was that he didn't consider that he had been sedentary all year round, and his lower body strength reserves couldn't support the extreme jump load of 150 times a week. He just chased the intensity of professional training without getting hurt.

Speaking of this, some people may ask, I practice with golfers of the same level, and my movements are based on the instructional videos, so why am I still injured? In fact, everyone’s body structure and traces of old injuries are different. Take the most common type of running as an example. Some people are born with pronation of the foot. If you blindly follow the trend and wear popular cushioning running shoes, it will increase the angle of ankle pronation and increase the risk of sprained feet. You must choose a supportive model to get the right symptoms. Completely copying other people's experience and ignoring your own special situation will step into the minefield of injury prevention.

There is a lot of debate on the Internet right now about "should you do static stretching before exercise?" There is actually no absolutely unified conclusion in the industry. The professional weightlifting and sprinting athletes I have come across rarely do static stretching in pre-match warm-ups for fear of loosening muscle fibers and affecting explosive output, which may lead to strain when exerting force at the extreme limit. However, many long-distance running enthusiasts spend 3 minutes stretching their hamstrings and triceps before a match, and they are less prone to cramping during the entire run. After all, there is no absolute right or wrong. The core thing is to adapt to your own exercise type and the current physical feeling.

Some people think that everything will be fine if I am well prepared. In fact, this is not the case. My physical condition fluctuates at any time. For example, if you have an appointment to play football on the weekend, and you feel your ankles are a little stiff before you go out, you should do a few more sets of ankle circles, resisted inversion and inversion during the warm-up, and don't forcefully stop and change direction when playing. If you feel a slight pain in your knees after 20 minutes of playing, don't insist on saying "play for another half an hour and then leave." Get off the field and rest quickly. Many chronic synovitis and patellar tendonitis are caused by this little habit of "holding on for a while". It is like a rubber band that is stretched to the point of breaking every day and does not relax. Sooner or later, it will lose its elasticity. When it wears out irreversibly, it will be too late to regret it.

To put it bluntly, sports injury prevention has never been an academic question that needs to be memorized by rote. It just means respecting your body more, don’t be too strong-willed, and don’t rigidly apply standard answers. It works better than anything else.