Written by If you lift weights, are active or do any kind of exercise there is going to come a time where you will get injured. Whether it’s from tweaking your neck or pulling a muscle from not warming up properly. Exercise alone is a great way to build your body to prevent common injuries but you can’t prevent them all. I have never had any kind of serious injury which I believe is from my years of being active. On that same note, I have had my share of tweaked muscles and weird aches from time to time. So what do you do? What if you’re in the gym or outside throwing around a kettlebell and you drop that 115lb hog on your foot? Now you have a broken foot and 6 weeks in a cast. How about you wrecking your shoulder crashing into a tree while mountain biking (cough cough zach).
The answer is easy. Do what you don’t normally do when you are active. I think one of the number one reasons of injuries for weekend worriers and avid athletes is the lack of range of motion and flexibility. I don’t care who you are or how active you think you are. There is always something you don’t do enough of simply because you don’t have time or it’s not a priority. For example: stretching your shoulders and chest. I know personally my chest is probably one of the least stretched muscles on my body. We get so bent around pushing weight and improving our numbers that we are not helping our tendons, joints and ligaments grow and repair the way they should. I couldn’t imagine going through an intense leg workout and just walking out of the gym without doing any kind of stretching. People do it!
It sucks that you’re injured! Nobody wants to be thrown off their game or schedule but this is the best time to blow the dust off some of those things you have been sucking at.
B.G.W TOP LIST OF THINGS YOU DON’T DO ENOUGH OF
- Wrist flexibility: It’s extremely important to have full ROM with lifts such as power cleans, hang cleans and push press. If your wrists are tight then I promise you’re not doing them properly.
- Hip Flexibility: Work on those hip flexors in order to open those hips up so you can actually do a squat and not these butt flexes that people call squats. If your not bringing your thighs at least parallel without losing your balance then your hips are probably holding you back
- Quad and Hamstring: Some of the most overlooked and under stretched muscles when it comes to knee and back pain. Stretch them out! Get the fresh blood flowing to those joints. Take the time to get those hams to unlock themselves and allow you to have better mobility. Tight hamstrings can lead to tight glutes which can lead to a tight lower back muscles and pain
- Ankle: Can you even stretch your ankle? Yes, you can. I made an awesome video the other day on one simple way to stretch the muscles and tendons of the ankle. Check it out here.
- Shoulder: How is your shoulder ROM. It’s a “ball and socket” joint you should be able to move that thing any way you want. If you find it hard to scratch your back then you’re probably tight. Grab a broom stick and hold it above your head like a barbell and work on stretching the shoulder out by going through the normal range of motion for that joint.
Every injury is different so if your shoulder is blown out than you probably wont be doing much with it, so focus on the other things for now. Do these exercises as if you were in the gym doing your normal workouts. Take it seriously and before you know it you will be back in the gym performing better then you were before you were injured.
Easy does it,
William
