There are a lot of different factors that influence injury prevention.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t always work out the way we want it to. It’s the same regarding accidents. Every person, especially passionate athletes who exercise regularly, will experience unfortunate injuries at some point in their lives.
While we can’t control everything and guarantee ourselves to be harm-free our whole lives, there are several things we can do to reduce the risk of harming ourselves.
Muscular strength
More muscular strength means less stress being placed on the joints and bones. Thus, this protects the skeletal structure. Strong muscles and tendons keep the bones and joints in place during movements.
Being sufficiently strong also allows you to use the correct technique during exercises and your daily activities. When we’re not powerful enough, we tend to or even have to compensate by using improper techniques to lift heavy objects during our daily activities.
That’s why we need to learn how to become stronger and more muscular so that we have the required force to prevent injuries in the process of exercising.
Because over time, incorrect technique will inevitably lead to injuries. No matter how large, or strong you may be.
Muscular size
Muscular size is closely related to muscular strength. That’s why it’s essential to prevent injuries.
A bigger muscle has a larger amount of muscle fibers. So generally speaking, the bigger a muscle is, the more potential it has to contract, producing more strength in the process.
A larger amount of muscle mass can also help protect bones and joints from impact injuries. Seeing as the muscles will absorb part of the contact.
Bone strength
Lifting weights, but also exercising in general, increases bone density and the strength of our bones.
A stronger, denser bone means there’s less chance of fracturing or breaking the bone when exercising, or on impact.
All forms of exercise are effective at increasing bone strength. Particularly resistance training such as weightlifting, or even plyometrics.
Tendon strength
Lifting weights and exercising in general increases tendon strength.
A stronger, denser tendon has less chance of tearing. Tendon strength is harder to develop than muscular strength and needs a lot more repetitions than muscle fibers to evolve strong connective tissue.
Flexibility
Flexibility throughout the full range of motion of our joints is necessary for joints, muscles, and tendons to stay at their normal, healthy length and to be able to contract to their full potential.
When a muscle is shortened, it’ll lead to incorrect posture and thus, eventually to injuries over time.
Let me give you an example. Think about the artificially shortened biceps muscle when being put in a cast or sling after breaking your elbow joint.
After several weeks of not being allowed to move that arm, the range of motion of your elbow joint will be greatly reduced and muscles will have noticeably atrophied. This is why physiotherapy is usually prescribed in those cases. To increase the range of motion (ROM) and to increase muscular strength and size.
Increasing flexibility is best done by performing a static stretching routine multiple times a week. Although studies have shown that dynamic stretching can also be effective at increasing the range of motion of the muscles.
Workload capacity
Workload capacity is the total amount of volume that your body can handle and adequately recover from.
For instance, a weightlifting program with a progressively increasing amount of reps and sets will lead to an increased workload capacity due to more overall workout volume.
This increased workload capacity means that your body can handle more total stress, and recover faster in between sets and workouts.
Most important training factors that influence injury prevention
Warm-up/cool down
One of the best ways to reduce the chance of sustaining injuries is to warm up properly before moving on to exercising intensively.
A proper warm-up increases the blood flow throughout the body, which prepares our muscles for the increased, intense physical activity that lies ahead. You should never lift, run, or exercise at a high intensity in general without warming up. That’s because exerting yourself too hard without warming up beforehand increases the chance of acquiring injuries. That’s why warm-up sets are so essential before weightlifting.
A lot of traumas that happened could’ve been prevented if we had performed a proper warm-up.
A cool down in the form of walking or stretching after working out has been proven to help release the lactic acid that builds up in the muscles during exercise.
This means you’ll be able to recover faster in between your workout sessions, while simultaneously aiding to reduce potential delayed onset muscle soreness. (DOMS.)
Technique
Proper technique is important to prevent injuries. Whether it’s using the correct method when lifting, the right way when running, or even just lifting stuff from the ground.
A lot of the injuries we sustain come from continuous improper posture or continuously using wrong lifting techniques during our everyday activities.
No matter how big and strong you are, poor proficiency will sooner rather than later lead to accidents. So always invest in studying and learning the proper form first!
Most important recovery factors that influence injury prevention
Food
A healthy diet should consist of a high amount of protein, especially if you’re looking to build muscle mass. Research suggests that an adequate amount of protein helps to lose weight. And whether we know it or not, lots of people are not consuming enough protein in their daily diets.
Carbohydrates are your best friend if you’re an athlete looking to optimize your performance. Because your muscles need the energy that the carbs provide to perform to the best of your abilities.
Sleep
Getting enough hours of sleep is one of the best, and most underrated recovery factors to prevent injuries.
Each human being needs at least 8 hours of sleep each night to function optimally.
Although it’s possible to function with only a few hours of sleep, it’s still not optimal and will hinder both your training and your ability to recover from your workouts as well.
Try going to, and getting out of bed at a fixed time to improve your sleep schedule and your overall sleep quality. Your body, but also your mind will thank you for it.
Rest days
Rest days and injury prevention go hand in hand.
A body grows fitter, stronger, and bigger when resting and recovering. Not when performing the exercise itself. Note: This isn’t me recommending people to turn into a couch potato!
This process of rebuilding your muscles a bit fitter, stronger, or bigger than before works out what we call super-compensation. This is a large part of recovery and permits us to get in better shape than before.
Without an adequate amount of rest days, your central nervous system will start to overload, especially when powerlifting. When this happens, you’ll get weaker rather than stronger. That’s because your body is quite literally burned out. To combat this and prevent yourself from accumulating injuries from intense workouts, rest days are in order.
Deload
A deload is a predetermined, programmed phase in your workout routine wherein you lower the weights and adjust the amount of sets/reps you perform. A deload week is an alternative to taking a week off and serves the purpose of preventing physical trauma. The deload’s goal is the same as a week without training. To give your body some time to recover.
You could compare a deload to an active recovery phase like walking is to a running program. We want to get the blood flowing to aid recovery, but without the intense, or large volume that exhausts our muscles and cardiovascular system.
High-intensity and low-intensity days
The engine of a car that’s constantly running at its maximum capacity is sooner rather than later going to give out.
It’s a bit of the same concerning the human body. To prevent us from burning out, we should program high-intensity days and low-intensity days in our workout program.
Alternating high and low-intensity days gives our body a chance to recover in the in-between workouts.
Work capacity
Work capacity means how much volume your body can handle and adequately recover from between workout sessions.
This means that our work capacity is directly related to our ability to train hard and recover in between our sets and workouts.
Increasing your work capacity can be accomplished by gradually increasing the volume or intensity you perform during your workouts. Either by increasing the amounts of reps, and sets, shortening the rest times in between sets, increasing the weights, or potentially all of the above.
Other factors that influence injury prevention
Age
Age also plays an important role in injury prevention.
Older people have less bone density, less muscle mass, and less overall strength than their younger peers.
This overall physical deterioration that happens naturally when we get older means that older folks are at an increased risk of sustaining injuries. To combat this, exercising has been proven to increase bone density, strength, and muscle mass.
This means that working out is effectively the cure for aging gracefully and prevents age-related harm. Although father time is unbeaten, and aging is inevitable for each one of us.
Gender
In general, men are stronger than women.
The average man has larger bones, a thicker bone density, more muscle mass, and more strength than the average woman.
This means that women are at an increased risk of sustaining injuries compared to men when performing the same intensity of exercise.
Conclusion
While most people view accidents as having a physical cause, in reality, it’s often a combination of poor recovery, non-optimal training, poor technique, and many other possible factors.
Injury prevention is part of staying healthy, and we should take it seriously since we only have one body during our time on this planet.
Improving in areas wherein you’re performing poorly or suboptimal will likely help you to live a healthier life, and to prevent future traumas.