Injuries are one of the main fears of every athlete, both professionals, and amateurs. Have an injury to the muscles, cartilage, ligaments, etc. It forces us to put sport aside for a while, with what that entails. By not doing sports, we lose muscle fat, physical background, we do not enhance our abilities, we cannot release stress or toxins … In addition, an injury requires a rehabilitation process, which can be uphill if we are not mentally strong.
With the aim of avoiding injuries, we are going to explain what are the steps that we must follow every time we play sports. However, some of them should also be done on rest days.
Actions that prevent injuries
- Warm-ups
Warm-ups are essential both before starting physical exercise and at the end of it. They help to oxygenate the muscles and there is a greater flow of blood, in addition to giving us greater flexibility and helping us to relax and concentrate. Therefore, the intensity of the warm-ups must be carried out progressively so that the muscles begin to warm up little by little. They should last around 15 minutes.
- Stretching
Flexibility prevents injury, and how do you get flexibility? We have already said that with the warm-ups but, above all, with the stretching. The muscles should be stretched gently and slowly until reaching the point of tension, to stay there for at least 30 seconds.
- Appropriate sportswear
Each type of sport requires a different model of shoes. We cannot use the same footwear to practice soccer, basketball, tennis, spinning, or to do bodybuilding. Each workout has different demand and a greater or lesser effort is made with each of the muscles of the body. In the same way, we must wear comfortable and loose clothing, which allows us to perform extensive movements with all the extremities.
- Correct technique
Many of the injuries are caused by not executing the exercises correctly. Bad technique can get muscle groups involved that they shouldn’t and, on top of that, get involved in a bad position.
- Do not exceed our limits
We always want to see results quickly, but this is difficult. For this reason, we tend to subject our body to high limits to which it is prepared, causing it to injure itself.
- Breaks
Not resting the muscles and joints causes them to become overloaded and, with this, they end up breaking from one moment to the next.
