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Brian Porter MHFST Sports Therapist
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| INJURY PREVENTION Like most athletes, you undoubtedly want to lower your chances of incurring an injury while participating in your favorite sport. Injuries decrease the amount of time you can spend in leisure activities, lower your fitness, downgrade competitive performance, and can lead to long term health problems such as arthritis. There are some general rules for injury avoidance which apply to all sports. Coaches and athletes believe that males have higher injury rates than females. Male and female athletes have about the same injury rate per hour of training. Among runners it is considered that training speed is the cause of injuries (Speed Kills) but research indicates that there is no link between speed and injury risk. Do not overdo itFatigued muscles do a poor job of protecting their associated connective tissues, increasing the risk of damage to bone, cartilage, tendons and ligaments. If you are a runner, the link between training quantity and injury means that the total mileage is an excellent indicator of your injury risk. The more miles you accrue per week, the higher the chances of injury. Regular exercise has a way of uncovering the weak areas of the body. Pain is the first indicator the body gives us that we are overdoing it. Listen to your body and if there is pain, STOP! Reducing the number of consecutive days of training can lower the risk of injury Recovery time reduces injury rates by giving muscles and connective tissues an opportunity to restore and repair themselves between work-outs. Sports people who are aggressive, tense, and compulsive have a higher risk of injury than their relaxed peers. Tension may make muscles and tendons tighter, increasing the risk that they will be harmed during work-outs. Performance is also reduced when we are tense Some injuries are caused by weak muscles that simply are not ready to handle the specific demands of your sport. It is advisable to couple resistance training with regular training. Detection of Muscle imbalance and correction before injury has occurred should be part of any injury prevention strategy. Regular sports massage can be beneficial in this strategy. Muscle stiffness is thought to be directly related to muscle injury risk and so it is important to reduce muscle stiffness as part of a warm up. Trigger points are an early warning to a potential serious injury so checking for these is very beneficial. A regular sports massage is well worth it to check for and release trigger points. Injury prevention tips
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