Why am I always getter hurt?

I recently received an email from someone asking why they keep getting hurt in their exercise program. Injuries can occur sometimes and there is little you can do to prevent them. There are many proactive approaches you can take, however, to significantly limit injuries during a workout. The two biggest reasons I usually see for injuries either from exercise or daily activities are poor postural alignment and/or weaker stabilizer muscles.

1. Poor Postural Alignment:

Most people suffer from some postural distortion. Common distortions include rounded shoulders and an anterior pelvic tilt. Imbalances such as these can cause serious injury if they are not corrected. When you suffer from a posture issue there are two things that are occurring. First you have one muscle that is overactive, or too tight, and is pulling a joint in one direction. On top of this you also have the opposing muscle that is too inhibited or weak and it cannot support the pull of the tight muscle.

For example if you look at someone who has and anterior pelvic tilt. This means the have a forward tilt of the hips which you can see with an increased lower back curve. One common explanation is they have hip flexor muscles that are overactive and too tight, which will pull the pelvic bone down in the front. On the opposing side the will most likely have weak abdominal muscles that cannot support the extra pull and allow the hip to be pulled forward. This posture problem can result in lower back pain because of the pressure placed on the spine. This is a classic example of how the site of the pain is usually not the site of the problem. This correct this issue you would need to incorporate an intense stretching routine for the hip flexor and a strengthening routine for the abdominal muscles.

2. Weak Stabilizers:

When most people start an exercise program they are very motivated and want to get the most out of their workouts. This means they will lift very heavy weight and push themselves as hard as they can. While it is great they are motivated this again can lead to serious injury. Most people only want to work the muscle that they can see. These are the bigger, "sexier" muscles like your pectorals, latissimus dorsi, biceps, triceps.... When you only focus on these muscles you probably will not strength the smaller muscle that support the joint.

For example if you want to get a bigger/more defined chest you will probably start performing the bench press exercise. This is a great exercise to work the pectoral muscles but this is not a great place to start. If you only train these larger muscles they will get stronger and you will need to increase weight to continue to improve strength. This type of exercise will not work your rotator cuff muscle very effectively however and these muscles help support shoulder stability. If you keep increasing weight without training these stabilizer muscles it is a matter of time before you will put too much strain on the shoulder and have an injury.

You need to start an exercise program with exercises that improve joint stability so you can eventually improve overall strength.
Here is a great exercise that will help improve shoulder stability.



Mike
San Diego Boot Camp