Avoid Sports Injuries: 4 Tips

By Shaun Pownall

Jan

30

2023

Time to read

1 minute

Read so far

Sports injuries can be both painful and costly. It's important to take steps to prevent a sports injury or the need for sports injury rehabilitation.

In this blog post, we'll look at 4 simple ways to avoid a sports injury:

warming up,
cooling down,
proper technique,
sleep and nutrition.

With just a few small adjustments to your routine, you can reduce the risk of a sports injury and keep playing the sports you love.

Warming up

Warming up before your workout session is important in order to help raise your heart rate and increase the circulation of blood to your muscles, making them easier to contract and operate efficiently. To achieve this, you can utilize different types of dynamic stretches, such as open/close the gate and leg swings, as well as incorporate resistance banded exercises. Doing this will lessen the possibility of any physical injuries, like tears, strains, sprains and tendonitis, from occurring.

Cooling Down

Cooling down afterwards is also necessary to further lower your heart rate, reduce lactic acid and decrease the chance of any potential injuries. This includes doing some light aerobic activities like walking or cycling, and a few static stretches to improve range of motion and promote muscle repair and growth.

Proper Technique

Using good technique in sports/exercise will create better habits and will reduce the chance of injury occurring. Having a coach to observe you in training will help to have a different perspective on how you’re doing certain movements and can then give advice on technique. Sometimes, what we perceive we are doing may be inaccurate from what we are actually doing, so having someone else see what you do is helpful. Typically, you’ll have training sessions for specific actions in sports. Drills and different exercises will help you to use better technique in the sport you do.

Sleep and nutrition

Nutrition and sleep are also important when you’re playing a sport or doing any type of physical activity, as they’ll both aid in the recovery process. Depending on the sport, you may need to adjust your nutrition by tracking the number of calories, macronutrients and micronutrients, to restore the energy levels your body requires to perform at its best. Likewise, it’s essential to have a decent amount of sleep (at least 7-9 hours) in order to assist the growth and repair of muscle fibres/soft tissue, and remove the toxins from your brain cells. All of this will prevent any type of injury from occurring, either due to a lack of focus from inadequate rest, or from an injury not healing properly.