Hi, Tom, ProTom Fitness, Injuries Part 2. Mainly sports people, or people that are hitting the gym frequently.
The first thing is, if you don’t give yourself enough rest to recover, you are going to end up with some kind of injury. Or if you are pushing yourself pretty hard every time, and you are trying to improve on every occasion, what happens is you end up over-training.
Over-training is kind of dangerous. There are some weird sports people that prefer over-training, and probably they can manage it, but I think the reason why they can do that is because they have a really good nutrition plan. If you don’t have a good nutrition plan, then probably it is not going to work.Anyway, generally for everyone, if you over-train, you end up with an injury eventually. If you don’t give yourself enough rest, and recover, you might not be able to perform at a better, and higher, level. Also flexibility, that is a really big issue.
These days everybody just crack into the gym, do something, then they chit chat, do something again, and then in the end say, “Okay. Time is up. I have to go.” They don’t do stretches. Now stretches are really, really important. They make up about 70% of your fitness. If you have a limited range of motion, you will easily end up with some kind of injury.
Also, your force production and power is going to be limited by your inflexibility. Stretching is much more important than training. If you go to the gym and you only have an hour, then I highly recommend doing a 45-minute session, and then 10 to 15 minutes of stretches at the end. But don’t do the opposite.
Don’t do 55 minutes and then just quickly stretch down. Stretches are going to be really helpful in avoiding injuries.Now, as I said in the other video, sometimes you can’t predict injuries. If you have one, what you can try is to push it over, and your body might be able to recover. Or if that doesn’t work, you have to go to a physio or a chiropractor or an osteopath, whatever, and ask for a second opinion, and then just do your rehab exercises.
Rehab exercises are actually pretty good. You are starting to use your muscles, other muscles groups, or maybe the same muscle group, for a different or certain range, and you can have a quicker recovery.
Okay. We have covered:
• Take a break sometimes. Even take a full day away from training.
• Don’t over-train. That is what I say, but some people prefer over training.
• Stretches. Stretches are really important.
• Recovery is really important.
If you keep to these rules, you should be injury free. Thank you for your time.
ProTom Fitness, Fit Body, Fit Mind.
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