This blog post is dedicated to injury prevention. After finishing the book Results Fitness, 2012 written by a variety of health professionals I will focus on the last chapter by Amy Wunsh, a physical therapist at Results Fitness. The book is a great read by the way with different effective strategies on how to get better results related to nutrition and exercise.
The 4 principles to injury prevention:
1. The source of your pain is not always the driver/ cause of your problem. Sometimes pain located at the shoulder derives from the neck. In addition, knee or shooting pain down the leg pain can arise from the lower back. Also, pain at mid- back region might come from visceral organs. Every joint in the body is connected to each other from the ankle joint up to your head. A postural assessment will reveal if any compensations take place.
2. Your body needs maintenance every now and then and you are responsible to take care of it. Prevention through exercise, physiotherapy or any type of recovery strategies such as nutrition, sleep, soft tissue massage or cold immersion are some effective elements. It's a similar analogy to your car maintenance.
3. If there is pain or any other dysfunction in the body, please do not ignore it. You must always take action. If one practitioner does not find out the source of the pain or dysfunction, it is time to look somewhere else. If in case you do not see any improvements in 3-5 therapy sessions then you should seek for another medical opinion, and
4. Consistency is key. Make sure you eliminate the things that make you feel bad or cause you pain and make sure you continue doing the things that make you feel better. This is associated with posture corrections or any type of prevention exercise program that you are following after any type of dysfunction.
It's that simple!