Muscle strains have the power to incapacitate even the world’s strongest people. Whether you’re a workout buff or someone who has just embarked on their fitness journey, you want to know what to do to protect yourself from muscles strains –and keep them from derailing you from your goals.
Below, we’ve prepared a few, simple tips to help you keep your muscles strong, limber, and injury-free during workouts. Check them out.
Tip #1 As Always, Warm Up and Cool Down.
It’s difficult to talk about exercise injury prevention without mentioning this. Warming up is essentially a way of prompting your body to prepare for exercise. Warming up elevates your body temperature and boosts blood flow to your muscles. When your muscles are warm and relaxed, they are able to move easily and are less likely to get stiff, sore, and tear.
Lactic acid is a byproduct of high-intensity exercise, as the body pushes hard to produce the energy that it needs to sustain the activity. Lactic acid buildup in the muscles can contribute to soreness, stiffness, cramping, and fatigue. Fatigued muscles are more likely to get overstretched or torn.
Cooling down can help you lower your risk for muscle strains by speeding up the process of eliminating lactic acid from your body and allowing your muscles to recover more quickly.
Tip #2 Mix Up a Few Different Exercises.
Switching up your routine helps lessen your risk for muscle strain by allowing your overused muscles to rest and recover before engaging them again.
To switch up your routine, you can try swapping bodyweight exercises for weight-training exercises (exercises that involve the use of dumbbells or weight machines). If you’re into squats, you can try lunges or other bilateral movements.
Tip #3 Observe Proper Form.
Learning and mastering proper form is essential for targeting correct muscle groups. This helps you keep your workouts within safe physical limits and ultimately reduces your risk for injuries.
Tip #4 Drink Enough Water.
When you exercise, a lot of water gets excreted from your body through perspiration. Drinking enough water replenishes the water and electrolytes you lost through your sweat, thereby reducing your risk for muscle tension and cramping.
When muscles are tense, they become less pliable and unable to move well. This can result in a variety of problems, such as a strain.
Muscle Strain Treatment and Prevention in Westlake and Avon, OH
Here at Orthopedic Associates, our board-certified sports medicine physicians work with athletes and people who lead an active lifestyle not only to provide them with high-quality injury treatment but also to teach them preventive strategies and useful techniques that ultimately help them reach their full potential.
Schedule your visit with one of our sports medicine physicians today. Contact our staff at (440) 892-1440. Let our team help you move and perform better!