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11 Tips for Injury Free Weight Training

Adam23

Adam23

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By Lee Hayward



Here is a list of some important safety tips that should be followed by all weight trainers. These tips can help prevent injury and help speed your progress.


1.Have a medical check up before you begin working out, especially if you have been living a sedentary lifestyle over the past year or more.

2.Always warm up prior to working out. Most injuries are the result of jumping into a heavy workout too quickly. A good warm up only takes a few minutes, but it can prevent pulled muscles and injured joints.

3.Use collars on all barbells. If you forget to put the collars on the barbell, the plates may fall off. This can cause serious injuries such as muscle tears, pulled tendons, etc. Play it safe, and use the collars.

4.Use a spotter when necessary. When doing exercises such as bench press, squats, shoulder press, lying tricep extensions, etc. have someone stand behind you and provide assistance lifting the weight if necessary.

5.Where applicable, use catch racks such as the squat rack or power rack. The rack will prevent you from getting pined under a heavy barbell. This is a must if you are working out alone and do not have a spotter.

6.Use proper exercise form at all times. Training with poor exercise technique will produce poor results and increase the risk of injury.

7.When unsure how to do an exercise, ask a knowledgeable instructor or experienced gym member.

8.Use a weight lifting belt when doing heavy squats, deadlifts, or heavy rowing exercises. A good belt can help support the lower back muscles and help keep your back in proper alignment. However, do not use a belt for lighter exercises. Your lower back muscles need to be exercised just like any other muscle and if you wear a belt all of the time the lower back muscles will get weak.

9.Dress appropriately for your workouts. If it is a cold winter’s day, make sure to wear a sweat shirt and sweat pants. This will keep the muscles warm and prevent injury. The opposite applies during a warm summer’s day, wear lighter clothing to keep cooler and prevent dehydration.

10.Put your weights back when you are finished with them. It is not safe to have barbells and plates laying around on the floor or left on the exercise equipment. Return all equipment to it correct location when you are finished, this is good gym etiquette.

11.Drink water during your workouts. This will prevent dehydration and help maintain your energy levels. Carry around a water bottle and sip water between sets. It is best to drink water that is at room temperature because cold water can cause stomach cramps while working out
 
tim290280

tim290280

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I've posted an article before on being injury free. I think it was focussed at long time trainees. To be blunt, it pissed all over this article.
By Lee Hayward

Here is a list of some important safety tips that should be followed by all weight trainers. These tips can help prevent injury and help speed your progress.


1.Have a medical check up before you begin working out, especially if you have been living a sedentary lifestyle over the past year or more.
This is the top tip "for all trainees???" I agree that you should have a medical regularly, but it isn't the most important thing to do. Also MD's generally have SFA idea of what constitutes healthy activity and diet.

2.Always warm up prior to working out. Most injuries are the result of jumping into a heavy workout too quickly. A good warm up only takes a few minutes, but it can prevent pulled muscles and injured joints.
Warm-up is good. But I'm getting a little sick of the statement about why most injuries occur, because that is straight up false. Most injuries occur well into training or competition, virtually never in the first thing you do.

3.Use collars on all barbells. If you forget to put the collars on the barbell, the plates may fall off. This can cause serious injuries such as muscle tears, pulled tendons, etc. Play it safe, and use the collars.
Collars are usually not needed for static or short ROM exercises, especially if the barbell is under control and will not be being dropped or hit anything. Collars are generally a must for any pulls from the floor or pins, when the bar is fully loaded, or when you drop the bar. Most of the reason for plates coming off is usually a misloaded bar or someone lifting incorrectly. In both cases the collars won't fix the problem.

4.Use a spotter when necessary. When doing exercises such as bench press, squats, shoulder press, lying tricep extensions, etc. have someone stand behind you and provide assistance lifting the weight if necessary.
I've got no problem with spotters, but they aren't really injury prevention. In some cases (like benching without safety pins) they are, but most of the time their function is unracking/racking the bar cleanly. Anything else a spotter does is largely ego or overreaching related.

5.Where applicable, use catch racks such as the squat rack or power rack. The rack will prevent you from getting pined under a heavy barbell. This is a must if you are working out alone and do not have a spotter.
While I fully agree with this point I'll say something else. Weightlifters spend a lot of their early stages learning to dump a lift safely. They learn when they have lost the groove or can't complete the lift and how to get out from under the bar quickly and safely. That is injury prevention right there.

6.Use proper exercise form at all times. Training with poor exercise technique will produce poor results and increase the risk of injury.
This should be #1. And see #7 comments.

7.When unsure how to do an exercise, ask a knowledgeable instructor or experienced gym member.
This doesn't go far enough. How do you know that the local guy is knowledgeable?? Check out a few of the books (Stuart McRobert wrote a great one, most of the S&C manuals are decent, weightlifting manuals), read various sources, watch some instructional videos......... the list goes on. Your technique is a continuously evolving and improving standard.

8.Use a weight lifting belt when doing heavy squats, deadlifts, or heavy rowing exercises. A good belt can help support the lower back muscles and help keep your back in proper alignment. However, do not use a belt for lighter exercises. Your lower back muscles need to be exercised just like any other muscle and if you wear a belt all of the time the lower back muscles will get weak.
NO. Belts very rarely have a place in training. Their main place is for maximal lifts. Short of you training for PLing or other strength sports there is little call for a belt to be ever worn in training. Having said that they do have benefits but these are generally abused in order to lift more weight than their muscloskeletal system has developed to allow

9.Dress appropriately for your workouts. If it is a cold winter’s day, make sure to wear a sweat shirt and sweat pants. This will keep the muscles warm and prevent injury. The opposite applies during a warm summer’s day, wear lighter clothing to keep cooler and prevent dehydration.
While I agree with this point in general, it has little to do with injury prevention.

10.Put your weights back when you are finished with them. It is not safe to have barbells and plates laying around on the floor or left on the exercise equipment. Return all equipment to it correct location when you are finished, this is good gym etiquette.
Safe for whom? Curtious yes, but dangerous and about injury prevention??? I can think of instances where this would be the case, but I've seen gyms set up in a manner that are far more dangerous.

11.Drink water during your workouts. This will prevent dehydration and help maintain your energy levels. Carry around a water bottle and sip water between sets. It is best to drink water that is at room temperature because cold water can cause stomach cramps while working out
This isn't really about injury prevention. Yes it is good to keep hydration up, but lifting weights for an hour, short of a really hot day, is not going to induce the sorts of dehydration that will cause inury through dizziness, reduced coordination, etc.

Injury prevention is more than just a bunch of basic training parameters and common curteousy's.

Check out this article - it is far superior.
http://www.musclemecca.com/showthread.php/my-10-best-injury-management-tips-43784.html
 

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