Principles of sports injury prevention

Prioritize matching individual foundation, strictly control load growth rate, identify risk points in advance, and dynamically adjust exercise plans. All action standards, warm-up stretching and other common requirements must serve these four core logics, rather than being used as separate judgment criteria. To put it bluntly, the core of these four principles is "Don't compare yourself to others, adapting to yourself is the most important thing." Just like raising succulents, if others water them once a week, they will live well. If you water your house with poor ventilation at this frequency, it will definitely cause root rot.

Last month, I evaluated a friend who had just applied for a fitness card. She was 165cm tall and weighed 140kg. She had hardly walked outside for more than 10 minutes in the past three years. The coach immediately arranged a 1-hour strength + 40-minute elliptical machine class for her. After two exercises, she complained of knee pain. The X-ray showed that she had infrapatellar fat pad inflammation - this is a typical pitfall that does not match the individual foundation. In the past few years, the saying "no pain, no gain" was particularly popular in the fitness circle. Many people equated muscle soreness with the training effect, and even gritted their teeth and endured the pain to complete the plan. In the past two years, the fitness circle has begun to promote "painless training", saying that as long as it hurts, the movement is wrong. In fact, both statements are too absolute. If professional athletes are preparing for competitions, the occasional normal delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is a sign of adequate training. However, if ordinary sports enthusiasts feel sore after training that they have difficulty walking down the stairs, it must be excessive, and there is no need to join in the fun.

Many people say that my movements are very standard and I even did my warm-up, but why am I still injured? I met a runner a while ago and he was wondering if his movements were standard? I won a local amateur horse racing award, and I did the warm-up for 20 minutes each time. Just because I signed up for a full marathon, I used to run up to 30 kilometers a week, but I rushed to 60 kilometers in two weeks. Achilles tendonitis broke out, and I didn't dare to run long distances for half a year. To put it bluntly, it is a problem of sudden load increase. The academic community has always said that the weekly training load increment should not exceed 10%. In the past two years, new research has also said that this number is too rigid. Teenagers recover quickly, and it is no problem to increase the load to 15%. Middle-aged sedentary people may be cautious when increasing the training load by 5% every week. To put it bluntly, it still depends on how your body feels.

Oh, by the way, many people don't even know that they have inherent risks of injury, so they just practice blindly, which is equivalent to crossing the road with their eyes closed. A golfer complained to me before that his squats were always crooked, and his waist still hurt after practicing for half a year. He found several coaches to change his movements to no avail. Later, I asked him to take a full-length photo of his lower limbs, and he discovered that there was a 1.2 cm difference between his natural long and short legs. Later, I put a 0.8 cm corrective pad on the insole. After two weeks of training, the crooked problem disappeared and my waist no longer hurts. There are also people with congenitally high patellas. The pressure on the patellofemoral joint is greater than that of ordinary people. They have to imitate others and squat until their thighs are parallel to the ground or even lower. It is strange that they don't feel pain. If the same part hurts every time you practice, don't blame the movement first. Check first to see if there are congenital structural problems or old injuries that have not been healed well.

Also, don’t stick to the training plan. I suffered this loss when I first started weightlifting. I stayed up late the day before to change my plan until 3 o’clock, and the next day I went to the gym and insisted on beating the previous PR (personal best). When I did the snatch, I stabbed my wrist directly. It took three months to heal. Later I realized that there are too many variables in exercise. Whether you slept well the day before, whether you drank alcohol, and whether a girl is about to get pregnant will all affect your muscle strength and reaction speed. There is no shame in losing weight and reducing capacity when you are in poor condition. There are two schools of thought in the strength training circle today. One is to strictly follow the cycle plan and complete it even if the condition is not good. The other is to self-regulate the load. If the condition is good, sprint and if the condition is poor, paddle. In fact, both are reasonable. Professional athletes need to prepare for competitions in a periodic manner and can follow the plan. Ordinary enthusiasts are just for health and can do whatever is comfortable for them.

Oh, yes, some people always ask how long does it take to warm up? There is really no standard answer. When running outdoors in the winter, you may have to spend 15 minutes to open your joints and get slightly warm before you dare to run. In the summer, if you train your upper limbs in the gym, it is enough to move for 5 minutes to activate the rotator cuff and circle the wrist twice. If you sweat profusely during the warm-up and your strength is exhausted, you will be more likely to be injured. This is actually part of the principle of dynamic adjustment.

All said and done, there really is no universal formula for sports injury prevention, nor does it mean that everything will be fine just by memorizing a few movement standards and doing warm-ups for a sufficient amount of time each time. Don’t just watch the bloggers on the Internet lose weight and just follow Pamela, and don’t just follow after seeing your friends around you who can squat 100 kilograms. Your body is your own. Feel the signals it sends. Stop when it hurts and rest when you are tired. If you can keep practicing safely and safely, it is more reliable than running volume, weight, or vest line.