By Ana Margarita Olar | South of Metro |
Intense workouts really involve pain at some point but you have to be cautious whether the pain is normal or it may be a sign of a workout injury.
Here are some workout injuries, their symptom, and prevention:
Patellofemoral Syndrome
Also known as the runner’s knee, it is the pain experienced under the kneecap that worsens when walking down stairs, running, or sitting with bent knees for long periods of time. Crunching, creaking or grating sound.
Runner’s knee can develop from running, jumping, and squatting. In order to prevent this workout injury, you have to keep your knees flexible with like seated and high leg knee raise.
Low back strains
Experiencing a sharp and sudden twinge in your lower back may be a sign that you are overdoing your workout. This condition can develop from squats or dead lifts in the wrong position, twisting movements and sideways bends.
This could lead to a worse case such as nerve compression or disk herniation. In order to prevent this workout injury, beginners should first learn how to maintain a neutral back to allow the natural curves of your back to absorb the pressure during exercise.
Learn to maintain proper body posture and stance before lifting weights.
Ankle sprain
Ankle sprain could happen during jogging and running outdoors or even on a treadmill. If you lose focus, you can accidentally fall off a treadmill and develop sprains.
To prevent this workout injury, use the clip found on most treadmills and attach it to your clothes so that the machine will stop when you fall. When running outdoors, stay on level sidewalks and paved walkways.
Tibial stress syndrome
Also known as shin splints, this workout injury is characterized by a pain along the inner edge of your shin bone. It develops mostly among runners or those who participates in sports that include jumping motion.
You can prevent this by wearing proper shoes and increase the intensity of your workout gradually (10% a week). Also, make sure you perform warm up exercises first before you precede to high intensity exercises that involve jumping and running.
Biceps tendinitis
This workout injury is characterized by pain in front of the shoulder and upper arm weakness. You can acquire this injury when you overuse the muscle because of repetitive motions such as in swimming, weightlifting, tennis and golf.
To prevent this injury, avoid repetitive movements through cross-training and take enough rest in between the workouts.
Other injuries are rotator cuff injury, stress fractures, IT band syndrome, pectoral injury, patellofemoral syndrome and glenoid labrum tears.
Remember that workouts should benefit rather than you’re your body. So take extra care when doing your workout so that you’ll reap all the benefits without the injury.
