Gyms are incredibly healthy and beneficial places, after all, not only do they help us to look great, they also help us to burn fat, improve endurance, and improve our health and fitness in general. As beneficial as they are, they are still dangerous if you fail to treat them with the respect that they deserve. Now, when it comes to sports and fitness, sometimes injuries just happen. In other instances however, these injuries can be avoided. We’ve all seen the ‘gym fails’ videos online and we probably had a good laugh at them but sometimes these injuries can be serious, and potentially fatal. Like most things in life, prevention is the best cure and in order to prevent injuries we must understand why and how they happen in the first place. To keep you safe during your workouts here’s a look at 4 common reasons why people injure themselves in the gym.
Failing to warm up – Okay, be honest, how many of you can honestly say that you warm up every single time before training? If not, you really should do something about this as failing to stretch and warm up before training is one of the leading causes of injury in the gym. We stretch and warm up to get the blood flowing around our bodies and to help increase elasticity in our muscles. Tight and tense muscle fibres are far more susceptible to rips and tears than loose, warm, and elasticated muscle fibres. Basically, before you begin working out, always perform some basic warm up exercises and stretches.
Lifting with ego – Being able to lift heavy weights is satisfying to a lot of people, and it can be disheartening to see others lifting far more than you. No matter how frustrated you are however, you should never ever try lifting heavier than you are used to because that is a recipe for a serious injury. Trying to lift heavy weights by yourself with no spotter puts you at risk of torn muscles, joint problems, or simply of being crushed by the bar itself. Training heavy is fine, as long as you are sensible and have the necessary safety precautions in place, but lifting purely to give your ego a boost is a recipe for disaster.
Working through an injury – When you’re making great progress in the gym, there is nothing more frustrating than picking up a slight injury. Injuries slow down your progress, affect your strength, and can result in time off from the gym. Because of this, a lot of people will force themselves to work though injuries and to continue training as usual, even if they are in pain. This is the worst thing you can do however because you are literally putting your body under even more stress and you are not giving it enough time to recover. What’s more, you could make a minor injury worse, turning it into a more serious injury. If you pick up an injury, even a minor one, stay out of the gym and let it heal itself.
Practicing improper form – Want a guaranteed way of injuring yourself? If so then start lifting weights with improper form. Seriously, you’d be amazed by how many people out there perform exercises incorrectly and end up hurting themselves as a result. To get the most out of an exercise you need to make sure you are performing it perfectly, at all times.
