Tips for Avoiding Injuries

Nobody wants to have injuries, especially when they have a job, school or a family to take care of. Many people get injuries from improper lifting and moving, especially at work. Exercising or starting a new fitness routine often lands patients at clinics or hospitals with injuries as well. Did you know that simply learning the proper way to use your body when performing tasks could reduce or eliminate your risk for injury? Lifting heavy objects with your legs can avoid back injuries. Learning proper exercise techniques can prevent muscle strains and tears. Even eating right, changing your posture, or getting more physical activity can help you with avoiding injuries. Find out how you can injury-proof your life and stay stronger today!

Avoiding Injuries with Exercise

Many people injure themselves when first starting an exercise plan. This often happens at the start of a new year when many people are working on reaching their new fitness resolutions. However, you need to ease into a new routine. Going to hard or too fast can leave you feeling burnt out, overwhelmed and even injured. When starting a new exercise routine (or doing the same one you do every day), make sure you warm up. Harvard Health reports that warming up helps your body pump nutrients and oxygen-rich blood throughout your body. You want more blood and circulation in your muscles so that they are able to respond to change easily.

Make sure you prep for a workout by drinking plenty of water. Water can boost your energy and mood, plus, it’s a substance all your muscles and tissues need to work. When you exercise, you will also be sweating. If you haven’t hydrated yourself beforehand you can faint, become dehydrated, get heat stroke and more. Drink at least a large glass of water before a workout. Make sure you also know how to properly exercise. Don’t ever just guess at how to use exercise machines or how to do an exercise move properly. Find out the right form and technique so you don’t pinch a nerve, tear a muscle, or hurt your back. Listen to your body if you feel faint, have low energy, feel a muscle starting to hurt or more. Those small aches are cues that you need to take things easy and listen to what your body is telling you. Start out slow and gradually increase your level of workout intensity. These same tips apply for avoiding injuries in sports.

Avoiding Workplace and Overuse Injuries

You can get injured at work without even meaning to. Many people injured themselves because they have bad posture or do repetitive motions in the workplace. This also leads to overuse injuries. Bad posture can leave you with a hurt back and compressed or pinched nerves. Too many people sit at work without moving enough, causing them to be sedentary. A sedentary lifestyle leads to obesity, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure and more. Get up at least every hour and walk around for a few minutes, or stand up for periods of time where you work.

If you have a job that requires heavy lifting, always use your legs to lift and look up proper lifting technique. Not lifting something heavy just one time can land you with back or muscle problems for many months. It’s worth your time to do it right. With jobs that require repetitive motions (typing or making something), switch up what you are doing every few minutes. If you keep doing the same motion over and over, you’ll end up with an overuse injury such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which pinches a nerve in your hand.

What to Do After an Injury

Avoiding injuries is always the goal, but what if you are already injured? What do you do then? Many people have never been to a physical therapist, or haven’t had a major injury before. However, at some point in your life, you will probably have a torn muscle, broken bone, or injury from simply turning wrong. Chronic conditions and age also lead to injuries and ailments. You don’t want to simply take painkillers to curb your pain, especially because strong painkillers are addictive. Plus, they don’t actually heal your muscle or mend your bone or even relieve inflammation from arthritis and other chronic conditions. What you need is physical therapy.

There are many physical therapy services such as chiropractic care, neuropathy treatment, anti-inflammatory joint injections and more. Physical therapy is one of the best ways to heal from an injury. You will work with a physical therapist who accesses your injury or ailment. They then customize exercises, stretches and soothing therapies that focus on repairing damage in the body. Specific, customized treatment heals patients faster than the patient simply trying to figure their treatment out on their own. If you have a back injury, chiropractic care is amazingly helpful for relieving compressed or pinched nerves and aligning the back properly. Lower back pain is one of the major sources of chronic pain, affecting over 31 million people on a constant basis. Chiropractic care is a natural, drugless form of adjusting the back and spine to relieve neuropathy symptoms, inflammation, swelling and pain.

Avoiding Injuries and Treating Injuries

Avoid injuries if you can. When an injury happens, all is not lost. Even if you have a chronic disease or condition, you don’t have to accept chronic pain and other symptoms as a way of life. There are countless soothing and effective therapies that can help reduce your pain and symptoms and help you heal. No matter your injury or ailment, we have some service that can help make your life easier. For your free consultation, call Texas Spine & Sports Therapy Center today at (512) 806-0015!