Common Fitness & Workout Injuries

Sometimes it’s a matter of doing the right activity too much or too often; sometimes it’s a matter doing the right activity wrong; and sometimes it’s a matter of choosing the wrong activity for your particular body type or physical conditioning.

Even the most fit person can injure themselves during exercise. Fitness injuries are not just limited to the obese.There are ways to prevent injuries, your first step is always to see your doctor for diagnosis and treatment. Exercising with chronic pain is a recipe for disaster and may turn a temporary problem into a permanent one. Once you visit your doctor, talk to him or her about how to work around your injury.

The best prevention against fitness injury is to warm up properly before exercising by stretching and doing light movements to warm up your muscles. Starting to exercise without warming up makes your muscles prone to injury.

Common fitness injuries are pulled muscles, strained back, turned ankles and shoulder sprain. Often, when people begin a fitness routine using weights, they will try to lift a weight heavier than they should. This is one of the most common causes of strained backs and shoulder injuries. The most vulnerable muscles, however, are the hamstring, thigh, leg and calf, and strains in these muscles are common even in the most fit athlete. For beginners, the most common place for injury is the ankle or knee.

Here are some of the common fitness & workout injuries
- Pulled/Strained Muscles: This may be caused by not doing warm-up exercises and not stretching. If you fail to do warm-up exercises, you are surely asking for trouble. Warming up is done to prepare your muscles for the task ahead of you.

- Lower Back Pain: This usually happens when you often do an exercise that uses the muscles on your lower back intensively, like Running. Another cause is lifting a heavy weight without bending your knees. To avoid this, try doing exercises that strengthen your lower back and abdomen. Take a day off from the activity that causes it so the pain will not get worse.

- Knee Pain: Pain in the knees can be from a variety of causes. But this type of injury can put your Fitness life at risk especially if you are a runner. One way to avoid knee pain is by not overusing your knees.

To avoid these injuries, follow these simple guidelines: warm up and stretch, cool down after you exercise, do not lift too much weight immediately, and take some time to rest and let your body heal. By following these rules, your chances of getting injured are minimized and you become insured of being able to exercise for a longer time.