Prevention of common sports injuries

Preparation to match exercise intensity + dynamic calibration of action patterns + timely response to injury signals. There are no fancy remedies. By doing these three things, you can basically avoid most unnecessary injuries.

Last week I ran a half-marathon with a new member of the running group. As soon as I arrived at the 10-kilometer supply point, I saw a young man sitting on the roadside rubbing his ankle. He wore an ankle brace tightly. He also complained that he had pressed his leg for 10 minutes before starting, so how could he still sprain his ankle? In fact, this is a typical misunderstanding that many people have about "preparation" - a few years ago, the sports medicine community generally advocated static stretching for warm-up. In the past two years, the consensus in the physical fitness circle has long changed: for ordinary enthusiasts, the priority of special activation is much higher than that of general stretching. If you want to play badminton, just pressing your legs and shoulders is useless. You have to do 10 sets of side sliding steps, freehand swings, and ankle wraps in advance to wake up the muscles and joints that will be used next. Otherwise, you will suddenly stop and change direction when you get on the court. The ankle joints that have not been warmed up can't bear the sudden load, and wearing thick ankle braces is useless. Oh, by the way, there are different voices here. Many powerlifting enthusiasts think that warm-up only requires a few sets of light-weight special movements. There is no need to engage in fancy activations. In fact, the underlying logic is the same: let the target muscle groups adapt to the upcoming intensity first. It’s just that the adaptation methods of different exercises are different. No one is right or wrong. Just choose the project that suits you.

Compared with insufficient warm-up, the more hidden risk of injury is actually the wrong movement pattern. Last month, I saw a girl doing deadlifts in the gym. Her waist was bent like a reed blown down by the wind, and the weight was increased from 20kg to 40kg. The coach shouted three times to tighten her core and straighten her waist. She didn't look back and said, "I've seen online bloggers do it like this. When the weight goes up, the hip line comes out." As a result, the next week I saw her wearing a lumbar support to apply for a parking ticket. It was said that she had an acute lumbar muscle strain and she had to stand even when taking the subway. In fact, there has been a lot of controversy about this point. Many enthusiasts who pursue "effective training duration" will think that "as long as the target muscle group can be trained, it doesn't matter if the movement is slightly flawed." However, the statistics in the field of sports rehabilitation are here: more than 60% of chronic sports injuries, including tennis elbow, patellar tendonitis, and lumbar muscle strain that everyone often hears, are caused by repeated wear and tear of long-term wrong movement patterns. This kind of injury is not suddenly painful, but accumulated over time. By the time you feel something is wrong, it often takes several months to recover. When I practiced CrossFit for the past two years, I didn't believe in evil. I always had a habit of slumping my wrists when holding the bar. It hurt for almost a week and I still tried to hold up the weight. Finally, it was found that the triangular cartilage disk was damaged. I couldn't lift a thermos filled with water for three months, and I had to go to my grandma's house.

Speaking of hard work, many people’s misunderstanding of “extreme sports” is really fatal. I don’t know since when “pain means breaking the limit” has become the mantra of many fitness bloggers. Some people even train with injuries and use it as an inspirational figure. To be fair here, there is indeed a practice of "preparing for games with injuries" in the competitive sports world, but there is an entire team of team doctors behind them, who measure inflammation levels and adjust training plans every day. Ordinary enthusiasts can't even tell whether the pain is in muscles or joints, so they just try to carry it out, which is purely to make themselves suffer. Let me give you a simple judgment method: If it is muscle soreness during exercise and it is relieved quickly after stopping, then there is no problem; if it is tingling or numbness in the joints, or pain that has not disappeared for more than 24 hours after exercise, don’t hesitate, stop immediately, and if you have not recovered after three days of rest, go to the rehabilitation department as soon as possible. Don’t wait for a minor problem to become a chronic injury, and it will be too late to regret it.

Oh, by the way, don’t be superstitious about the “universal effect” of protective gear. I have seen many people who just bought new knee pads and dared to dance Pamela for an hour, thinking that they were wearing protective gear anyway and would not break down. In fact, protective gear is essentially a "compensatory tool", which is used to provide external support to parts that have been slightly damaged or have insufficient strength. If your joints are completely healthy, wearing protective gear for a long time will prevent the surrounding stabilizing muscles from being exercised, and the strength will slowly deteriorate. Taking off the protective gear will make you more susceptible to injury. Unless you are in high-risk sports such as skateboarding or skiing where you must wear a full set of protective gear, there is really no need to wrap yourself up like a Michelin star when running or working out.

After all, we ordinary people exercise for comfort and good health. There is no need to do it just to check in the number of steps in the circle of friends or to lift 5kg more than others. There is really no need to remember so many complicated prevention points. Before exercising, think about what you are going to do today, and move the relevant parts in advance. When doing movements, don’t blindly follow the trend and rush the weight. Stop when it hurts. It’s that simple. It is more effective than any expensive protective gear or supplements.