Are you making great progress towards your fitness goals at the gym and suddenly find yourself dealing with an injury? Training with heavy weights and especially performing new or rapid movements can lead to injury. What are the most common injuries in fitness and strength training, and how can you best treat them?
How to Recognize an Injury
First, it’s important to have an idea of what’s going on. Some people know their bodies better than others and can precisely feel what’s happening. Others may have more difficulty with this. Below are some common symptoms.
Attachment Complaints
Most injuries in strength training involve not the muscle itself, but the attachment where it connects to the bone. The attachment of a muscle is much smaller/thinner than the muscle itself and therefore must bear proportionally more stress. This pain is often felt at the beginning or end of a muscle.
An article specifically addressing tendon injuries has been written, but rest and cooling are usually recommended.
Muscle Level Injury
An injury at the muscle level is felt in or around certain muscles. You may notice either a sharp pain (stabbing) or a dull ache. This often accompanies pain during certain movements or when force is applied. There’s often a lot you can do for a muscle-level injury. A rule commonly used is:
- Rate the muscle-level injury on a scale of 1-10 (highest)
- Can you still move it?
- Have you rested for a few days?
If after a few days you still experience discomfort or if the pain or dull ache is high, it’s wise to seek professional help.
Blocked Vertebrae
In addition to muscle-level injuries, it’s common in strength training for people to block certain vertebrae or joints by doing the wrong exercises. This often results in a combination of pain, dull ache, and a feeling of something being stuck or twisted. This can be very uncomfortable and often prevents certain exercises from being performed at all.
A good professional can offer pain relief quickly once the blockage is resolved. Ask good questions and don’t let yourself be dismissed too easily. Even though they are professionals, you always feel your own body best.
Inflammations
Training heavily and frequently leads to inflammatory responses in the body. Often of minor nature, but sometimes larger. It’s important to reduce inflammatory responses in the body, and fortunately, there are things you can do about it. Healthy nutrition with plenty of omega-3 (fish oil) has an anti-inflammatory effect. Additionally, substances like Curcumin and vitamin D3 have a very positive effect on this.
