How to avoid sports injuries? Prevention is essential to enjoy physical exercise and sports without fear. Discover some useful tips that will be of great help if you practice sports every day.
What are sports injuries and why do they occur?
We have all suffered some type of sports injury at some point in our lives. And it is that, in reality, there is a wide variety of factors and causes that can directly influence us to injure ourselves when we are practicing some type of physical exercise. In turn, there are different types of injuries that are classified according to where the damage may have appeared.
Basically we could define a sports injury as an injury that occurs during the practice of some sport or during the practice of physical exercise. In most cases, these types of injuries occur completely accidentally. Although it is also true that some injuries can occur as a result of poor sports practices, or due to the inappropriate use of the training equipment that we are using.
What factors influence sports injuries?
Although the risk factors that can influence us to suffer certain injuries during sports practice are usually divided into predisposing, extrinsic and beginners, the truth is that in most cases they are ultimately a series of causes or more or more factors. Less frequent. In addition, if there are more factors in the same person, it is evident that the chances of an injury appearing will be higher:
- Inadequate or no physical preparation. Either because it doesn’t heat up or stretch properly.
- Lack of stretching. Either by having stretched an insufficient time, with the inadequate intensity.
- Fatigue. Especially when there is physical fatigue, sleep or psychological stress.
- Due to the use of inappropriate footwear.
- Due to the characteristics of the sport that is practiced.
- Due to an overexertion or bad sports gesture.
- Due to trauma and previous injuries that have not healed well.
How to avoid sports injuries:
1. The importance of stretching
First of all, we should always stretch both before and after exercising. In this way we help our muscles to adapt, recover and grow gradually, since the previous muscular warm-up makes our muscles more flexible and, therefore, more resistant to injuries.
Properly performed stretching helps, above all, when it comes to improving the flexibility of our muscles and joints, which helps in a powerful way when it comes to avoiding typical muscle injuries as a result of inadequate stretching in time and intensity.
To do it correctly, it is advisable to do a gentle and slow stretch, reaching the point of maximum tension and also keeping the limb or joint stretched for at least 30 seconds. You should not feel pain, but a maximum stretching sensation.
2. Avoid exceeding the limits when practicing exercise or sports
As you know, our body has a certain limit, and we know when we reach it because we tend to feel tired; the ideal is not to exceed this natural limit, since exceeding it implies a really high danger situation in which sports injuries can appear.
In other words, it is not appropriate to exert ourselves more than we should, and stop practicing the physical exercise or sport that we are following if we feel tired or our joints start to hurt.
In exercise, and in sports, it is very important to listen to our body, which will help us know when we should stop and not continue.
3. Wear the right training gear and shoes
Did you know that most sports injuries are caused by the use of inadequate footwear? How many times have we seen a person practicing physical exercise (especially running or jogging), and we see that they do it with uncomfortable clothes and with a type of footwear that is really inappropriate.
The key is, therefore, to try to use the right shoes for the type of physical exercise that we are going to do. Thus, the most suitable are those that adapt to the shape of our feet. In fact, there are shoes that even adapt to our way of walking.
If you have doubts about what type of footwear to choose, you can ask a clerk at the specialized sports store where you are going to buy the footwear, and ask for help and advice.
4. Be patient if it is the first time you practice it, or if you have not done it for a long time
Whether it is a new type of exercise or sport, in which you have no experience, or if you have not practiced sport for a long time, the key is to start slowly, without forcing yourself at first and avoiding that the duration of the exercise is long.
As you can imagine, the key is to stretch well, warm up, practice the exercise slowly and without haste, and gradually increase the intensity. In this way we will avoid unnecessary pulls and reduce the risk of injury.
5. Other useful tips that will help you
Attending to the need of whether we have to use knee pads, elbow pads, wrist pads or a belt to protect the lower back, while observing those alert mechanisms of the body that may appear is vital, such as pulls or the pain itself yes, and rest when we feel exhausted.
