Gym Injuries: How to Prevent Them
Posted by Guardian Athletic on Jun 14, 2021
No one wants to be injured, and no one wants to see someone getting injured, especially in the gym. Getting injured in the gym is one of the worst scenarios that anyone can face since your gym injury depends on how heavy the weights you are trying to carry as you continue striving to get that dream body. These are the following ways on how to avoid yourself from having gym injuries.
Don't Lift Your Ego
Don't deny that you once compared your weightlifting with someone, which is one reason why there are people in the gym who love to stand out by recklessly adding more weights in the bar until he can't carry it anymore. If ever that person tries to lift it or do another rep, they will get injured because his body can't handle that weight.
This scenario is called ego-lifting; you're lifting heavy weights not because you want to hit a new record, but because your ego got hurt because a newbie in the gym lifts heavier weights than you. So, to avoid getting injured, it is best, to be honest with yourself and continue taking small steps until you can lift that desired weight.
Curiosity Hurts
We all love trying new things because we are curious about that feeling. But if you are curious about what it feels like to do a bench press with a 150kg barbel without someone to spot you, you're giving yourself a one-way ticket to getting injured.
Worse, tearing up your pectoral muscle, a muscle on your torso, is one of the worst injuries in the gym. So, never let your curiosity get in your way.
Kinesiology Tape
The other way to prevent yourself from getting injured in the gym is by applying Kinesiology Tape to your body. KT tapes have been around the fitness industry since the '70s. Until now, many athletes and gym-goers are using kinesiology tapes to support their bodies in doing different physical activities, whether if it's in the court, field, or the gym.
Kinesiology tape is essential to the muscle because its high compressive properties carefully support your muscle in every workout.
Guardian Athletic's sports tape has an icy cooling feature that will help you recover and improve your performance in the gym since a cool temperature can help you regulate your body fluids from building up since this constricts the blood flow of that specific body part.
Using sports tape on your joint can help your curl up those bars without feeling that intense pain. Remember that it will give you bad joint pain if you hold the bar the wrong way. For this reason, you need to wrap kinesiology tape on your wrists to avoid this painful experience when lifting weights in the gym. Shoulders are also one of the body parts susceptible to gym injury due to lifting weights.
An outstretched shoulder can result in an accident in the gym, and that is why it is practical to apply kinesiology tape on your shoulder. Of course, never forget to use sports tape to wrap your elbow since this supports your arm in lifting.
If you focus your strength on your shoulders only, it will only result in an injury, and that is why you need to feel that strength from your shoulder, wrist, forearm, and to your elbow so that you'll prevent yourself from getting injured through over stretching yourself.
Overall, sports tape supports your body which will help you push yourself beyond your limits, and this is one reason why people see sports tape as a performance-enhancer since it helps you feel that less pain as you continue to hit that new record in the gym.
Always Do A Warm Up
If ever someone wants you to lift immediately without warming up, don't do it. Warming up plays a great role in the gym since you prepare your joints and muscles in lifting new weights- giving you a new record at the end of the day.
The other reason why there are people who feel worse pain than you after going to the gym is that they didn't do a proper warm-up. A proper warm-up must be at least 15 to 30 minutes, and that includes cardio and stretching. You need to pump up your body before you pump those weights.
A gym is a place where you are meant to train, not to get injured. The main purpose of training is to avoid getting injured because you're making your body stronger. But if you're getting injured in training, then that means you're doing it wrong.
That is why the best thing you can do here is to remind yourself that there is no shortcut to success in training. You can't be strong instantly, and you need to be very disciplined and consistent enough even if you've achieved that great physique.