Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Preventing Injury

I have been lucky in that I haven't EVER really injured myself {KNOCK ON WOOD}. I listen to my body. I rest when I need to and push hard when I need to. This week I worked my legs HARD {thank you Jillian Michaels, it ROCKED}. Well the next day it didn't rock so much; I was pretty sore. That same day my husband pretty much spent the entire day shoveling HEAVY snow. He got us dug out and while he was at work he had to shovel TWICE! We were DUMPED on! He hurt his back in the process; we were quite the pair!!

So I set to work to fix us both up but lo and behold I had NOTHING for us!! No ice packs; only one bag of frozen veggies {don't judge, we haven't been to the store for awhile} and nothing else that would work! No IcyHot. No ICE even!! Thank goodness for my in-laws who let us borrow an ice pack and some BIOFREEZE & my sister gave each of us a rice pack for Christmas. They saved the day!!

This little ordeal has added quite a few things to our shopping list!! And it's got me thinking about how to prevent a real INJURY!

What I already knew:
*Get yourself a good pair of shoes! Speaking of which, I am DESPERATELY in need of a new pair; I am LONG overdue! Though I hate that they still look so great, but that doesn't matter. You should replace your shoes somewhere between 350-550 miles, depending on your running style, body weight, and running surface.
*REST!! Your body needs recovery time!!! I NEVER run two days in a row {if I can help it}. Same goes for strength training {even abs}, your muscles need time to repair and recover between workouts. I really can't stress this one enough!
*Stretch!!! I really make a point to warm up, stretch, workout, cool down and stretch again. That last stretch I like to be a good one too! You're less likely to be sore and you'd definitely prevent injury by simply stretching after each workout!
*Drink A LOT of water! Without adequate water intake your muscles will be more tired and more likely to be pulled or strained.

Healthy Ashley did a post on the subject that is GREAT! Check it out! She has some other great tips too! What do YOU do to prevent injury? Seriously... I'd love to know!

1 comments:

Lisa said...

I love to use heat the most. I don't know how true this is. My thinking is that is keeps a nice blood supply to the area to help repair the damage. Then I massage it a little while its warm. When I know I'm really going to be hurting the next day I soak in a HOT tub with Epsom salt. Heat is my friend!

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