Staying Injury-Free Over The Years

This week’s newsletter we’ll talk about what happens when something goes wrong.

Everyone’s least favourite word: Injury.

Whether it’s a strain, sprain, tear, impingement or just “woke up with this weird pain, and now I can’t turn my neck”…

We are going to chat about what causes them, what we can do when they happen and how to prevent them (as much as possible).

First things first, I know there are those freak accidents, sporting injuries, bobbed when you should’ve weaved, etc.

Those things are more or less unavoidable, there are things we can do to mitigate the harm, but more ofter than not — completely unavoidable.

We are NOT talking about these injuries today.

We are talking about the strain sprains, cramps, pulls and all the other words we use.

What are they? Why do they happen?

Well, simply put, it is the body’s response to you asking it to do something it simply isn’t ready for or able to handle.

I’d wager 9/10 this is what happens to most of you when you get injured. Now there are a lot of nuances that can play into this, but it simply comes down to asking your body to do too much.

A good illustration of this is the pro athlete who tears his hamstring mid-game.

Surely they should be used to that?

Well most players never get close to 100% speed in a practice so when they do it in a game when the adrenaline is flowing?

Boom —> Injury.

Asked it to do too much.

For you: going up 10 lbs on your back squat, wake up the next day and have to shimmy out of bed.

Asked it to do too much.

Put in a bunch of 14 hour days because such and such report had to get done for Thursday…

Now you can’t look over your shoulder without looking like Batman?

Asked it to do too much.

A lot of people love to obsess over what caused the injury and when it happened, but if you start to think like this you realize it doesn’t really matter.

All that matters now is that you’re injured.

You did too much and your body told you that.

What do we do now?

Seems counterintuitive for most but… Keep Moving.

With these types of injuries blood flow is going to be your best friend, and the best way do induce blood flow is movement.

Another one is maintain the range that you do have.

Don’t sit back and wait for it to “heal” that’s when we get things like frozen shoulder.

Use what you have, so it doesn’t get worse.

Also, an added bonus is the more the muscle moves, the more the injured fibers “re-align” along the directions of stress, leading to less restrictions later on.

Now, the most important bit: Prevention.

These are pretty much guaranteed to happen, but how do we make them fewer and far between or bounce back quicker?

Simple — The 3 Core Tenets: Get Strong, Move Weird and Get Treatment.

(WOW! Shocking, right?!)

The stronger you are before injury, the less likely it is to happen or the less time you spend being injured.

Moving weird challenges the range of joints in different ways that we aren’t normally used to, the more we do that, the less likely we are to get into a position that our body isn’t used to.

Lastly, getting treatment helps you recover so there isn’t a cumulation of stress that can lead to injury.

Also, it allows you to move through range more freely, thus adding to move weird, add a weight on there and boom all three tenets.

So as much as I can’t promise you’ll never get hurt…

We might as well try to do our best by booking an appointment now.

Click here to grab one of the last spots this week.

Cheers,

Brandon

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