Injuries happen,but they Don’t have to.

Stole this pic from www.vessports.com

Fact is, eventually, you will get injured.

If you’re training hard, it’s easy for something “freak” to happen, but the fact is these “freak” accidents usually are not all that “freak” and have a root cause.

What this means is:

YOU Could Have Prevented Your Injury.

This isn’t always the case.

Not much you can do there, except not play the game.

And that’s usually the case with HARD TISSUE injuries. Most soft tissue  injuries muscle, ligament, tendon, however, are preventable.

This is especially true in the gym where we have control over the movement, load and duration of loading applied to the body.

“The myth of soft tissue injuries as freak accidents is a bullshit cop-out on the part of ignorant coaches”- James Smith

Injuries occur when the load on the tissue is greater than the “tolerance” or load the tissue can bear.

All tissues have a “tolerance” . Once you’ve exceeded that tolerance deformation occurs.

Deformation = Injury

So the key to injury prevention  is:

DO NOT EXCEED TISSUE TOLERANCE!

This can be done by managing the load and manner of loading on the tissues.

While even proper movement can result in excessive tissue loading (that’s what an overuse injury is), in my experience, excessive tissue loading most often occurs due to:

• Poor Movement Patterns
• Poor Training Load Management/ Incomplete Recoveries/Fatigue
• Poor Technique

Poor Movement Patterns

It could be constantly hanging off the lower back, using the knees as the driver of movement, having Desk Jockey Syndrome or any host of bio-mechanical issues.

All of these less-than-optimal patterns are resulting in the positioning of joints that leads to excessive loading of some tissues .

Perspective:

• Sleep in a bad position (8 hours)= 480 minutes
• Sit in your car going to work (half hour)= 30 minutes
• Sit at your desk all day (7 hours)= 420 minutes
• Sit in your car going home (half hour)= 30 minutes
• Sit in front of the TV/ computer (3 hours)= 180 minutes

So that’s 19 hours or 1,140 minutes a day you’re probably not in a good position and you’re reinforcing bad movement/ patterns/ positions and overall bad body habits, building fatigue in and decreasing the tolerance of the stressed tissues.

This means a near constant loading of some tissues in less than optimal positions through the day if these faulty patterns are present.

Poor Training Load Selection/ Incomplete Recoveries

Know when you feel like Azz and still load the bar up?

Yeah, I do it too, and it’s super stupid. <——Borderline Jackassery.

Know why you feel like a bag of broken scrotums? (They call that imagery)

Cause you ain’t recovered.

For Nerds like me:  the functional level of the organism (YOU), as in, what you are capable of doing, is less than optimal. This means previously damaged tissue is still not fully restored and therefore has a lower tolerance than normal.

Excessive loading, especially when you’re not recovered (fatigued)  is a REALLY great way to get injured because it usually results in…….

Poor Technique

The poor technique may stem from poor movement patterns, excessive loading or just plain being sloppy and not paying attention to executing the movement correctly.

In a nutshell poor technique means:

Sh@t Moves That Shouldn’t

Weight doesn’t hurt people, poor technique does.

If your technique is spot on and the weight is too heavy, you simply do not lift the weight.

Injury, usually, occurs when we default into a faulty pattern which stress tissues in a way and to a degree that the tissues can’t retain integrity and exceed tolerance quickly.

Why You Got Injured:

You Exceeded the Tolerance Of the Tissue.

Maybe you’ve trained at too high a load for too long or you have bad technique.

If either of those are the case you need to learn to regulate and periodize you’re training loads and learn correct technique.

These two issues can be managed (not entirely eliminated) by a competent coach and program.

But, in my experience, the #1 reason people I’ve worked with become injured and stay injured isn’t either of the above.

Instead it’s because they live on the brink of injury caused by Poor Movement/ Body Mechanics throughout the day.

The cumulative hours of poor movement throughout the day is almost IMPOSSIBLE to counteract with only a few hours a week in the gym.

Constantly applying even a low load/ stress to tissues doesn’t allow them to unload, recover, repair and reset to normal length- tension relationships and eventually this faulty positioning/ patterning/ loading becomes the “New Normal”.

Yes, you’re body adapts to a fundamentally damaging position. And yes, it’s your fault because you TOLD the body this was the best position to function in.

The typical  scenario usually goes: 

Fell asleep last night on the couch with the spine in a spiral pattern, sat slumped in front of a computer all day, then…

Come to the gym, do something, get hurt and place blame on the exercise <—-this is called: throwing the snowball….

Moment of Clarity: 

If an hour a day of exercise is 4% of your week, 96% of your week is non exercise related activities.

That means 96% of your day may be reinforcing poor movement, muscle asymmetries and other less-than-awesome tissue loading activities.

And you think it was the 30 seconds your shoulder was loaded doing  Pushups that jacked-your shoulder up and not the 10 hours a day you spend hunched over the computer hanging off your T-Spine? <—-this is called logic and was given to us by the Vulcan race.

Fact is, most people are Jacked-Up because they do Jacked-Up things ALL DAY, EVERYDAY.

Their tissue tolerance is so low when they walk in the door that even proper movement stresses the tissues to the point of deformation and injury.

Unless you pay attention to:

• Proper Posture
• Proper Movement
• Muscle Activation/ Strength
• Joint Mobility
• Tissue Quality

You’re going to be injured no matter what you do in the gym, and depending on how far away from “normal” movement you are and the level of loading applied to the tissues daily…you could be injured near constantly.

Easy Things you Can Do EVERYDAY to Un- Jack Yourself:

• Use proper posture throughout the day. Even when it’s easy not to. 
• Stretch Tight Muscles
• Strengthen/ activate weak/ sleepy ones.
• Pay attention to “hot spots”, “tacked down tissue”, “adhesions” and general tissue quality .
• Regain lost mobility at joints.<—–do your mobility work.
• Get up from your desk and walk around every hour, even for 2 minutes.
• Do extra, daily preventative maintenance on trouble areas: Neck/ Shoulders, Low Back
• Get REGULAR PHYSICAL exercise movement of any kind.
• Use Proper Technique.
• Be smart about your programming…Listen to your body…..

The Stick – Self Roller Massager you should get one, and USE it. 

In the end, if you’re too lazy to spend 10-20 minutes a day doing some self massage/ stretching/ muscle activation and  movement training and the rest of the day reinforcing good postures you’re gonna be hurt…

Probably Constantly…

It’s that simple.

Keep in mind: It took you a LOOOONNNNNNGGGGG time to get jacked-up, it’s gonna take more than a few exposures of the “corrective medicine” to get things in line.

Getting things back to “normal” means re-establishing a “new normal” and is  gonna take time, maybe months or years and depending on the severity of tissue deformation you may never restore optimal functioning.

But you can absolutely improve your injury tolerance and severely cut down or even eliminate both the major and minor injuries with a little mindfulness about your daily postures and some preventative maintenance.