Today “we train until we get injured instead of preventing while we train.” And then we panic and ask everyone how to treat our injury! The magic happens when we “take the risk of injury out of the equation” out of weight training and exercise by “putting our bodies in the best possible position to prevent injury!”
Not every “at risk” exercise will injure everyone, however what we are actually creating an “atmosphere for injury” for example in the shoulders, back and knees over time… How so? An example would be avoiding internal rotation of the shoulder with the old school bench press of elbows out to the side and upright rows and other repetitive movements. This could significantly decrease the rate of injury. The sequence of injury is usually irritation, inflammation, tendonitis/osis, tear etc…We don’t know when the pain or injury will get us, but for many of us it does unfortunately, I wish it didn’t. The risk goes up when we combine our body imbalances, misalignments, imbalanced feet, rounded shoulders, forward heads, poor thoracic rotation and poor hip mobility with today’s at risk positions. This an injury waiting to happen.
We are rolling the dice and the odds say the house usually wins! Who has time to get injured and
- has he money to pay for the medical bills
- can afford good health insurance to get the best care
- deal with the stress and seamlessly deal with the pain
- has the luxury of taking time off from work
- feels ok letting down a team that is counting on you
- happily risks losing muscular size
- has the patience for not being able to exercise the way we used to
- is at peace with the risk of never being able bench press, shoulder press or squat again the way were used to
My job is to educate you on the “at risk” positions of weight training and exercise and offer injury-free alternatives and your job is to arm yourself with as much knowledge as possible from proven experts in their fields and apply that knowledge to the best of your ability. It’s how we apply the knowledge that changes lives and prevents injury.
“Knowledge is not power, the application of knowledge is power.”
Remember: When you’re injured you are the only one suffering. No one loses sleep over it, not even your trainer or training partner (there are exceptions of course). Apply the knowledge and identify the root causes inside your exercise and your body. Without going to the source, you will keep repeating the mistakes that lead to repetitive injuries. I sincerely wish you what many of my patients now have: an injury-free weight training and exercise career. If you are not yet consistently injury-free, I hope you become the exception to the often injured status quo – and never get injured.
“An open mind unties the hands of the healer, trainer, weight trainer and athlete.”
About From the Bullpen
FROM THE BULLPEN is Dr. Jack Mantione’s corner on the web where he shares important issues in sports, exercise and weight training facing our youth, adults, amateur and professional athletes. “I understand your pain, injuries and frustrations because I have been in the same place with many of the same pains and nagging injuries. I had to conquer my own chronic pains and injuries in both sports and exercise in order to help others conquer theirs.” Dr. Jack will share his "outside the box" thinking and solutions on avoiding the "at risk" positions in weight training and exercise and the injury-free alternatives, how to train around injury as well as sports therapies that can assist in reversing today’s pain and injury epidemic. Contribute in your own way by sharing FROM THE BULLPEN, sending in questions and creating helpful information too… "Prevention is the GYM we must train in and the FIELD we must play on." -JM