These are the most common injuries when you start working out at the gym and how to prevent them.

January is August gyms. Student enrollment is at its peak thanks to people who include exercise in their New Year’s resolutions. The training halls are packed with people, but weeks pass and they empty. Many people continue to pay dues, believing that at some point they will renew, but gradually lose interest. This can be due to many reasons, but one of them is over-motivation, which can cause injury to both beginners and not-so-newbies. Generally, injuries in the gym They can happen to anyone, although logically they are more common in our early times.

When this happens, we become frustrated, think that exercise is not for us, and quit. This is the worst thing we can do. It is logical that you need to avoid injuries in the gym, but abandonment This is not the best way to do it. Lack of exercise is just as bad for our bodies as many of these injuries. Ideally, we prevent them without leaving sports aside, and for this The first step is to get to know them.

We need to know which injuries are most common in the gym in order to prevent them or, in the worst case, recognize them. As a rule, most of them are associated with same errors. These are common mistakes made by newbies and confident veterans alike. Knowledge is power, and this is what you need to know to achieve your workout goals without compromising your health.

The most common injuries in the gym

According to a review of scientific literature conducted by Colombian scientists in 2022, the most common injuries in the gym are those that affect shoulders, knees, lower back and elbow.

They can be of different types. Most often they occur sprains, where ligaments are damaged, strains, in which muscles and tendons suffer, and tendonitiswhere, as the name suggests, inflammation of the tendons occurs. If these gym injuries are mild, they can be treated at home until they gradually go away. However, if the pain is very intense or you do not feel any improvement, you should consult a professional.

In case of shoulder injuries, the so-called rotator cuff. It is a set of muscles and tendons that help stabilize the shoulder joint. If any of these muscles or tendons become inflamed or torn, severe pain can occur. Moreover, when stressed, such a simple movement as raising your arms and combing your hair can become real torture.

In the case of knees, many types of injuries can occur, although the most common is a knee injury. anterior cruciate ligament. This is a ligament that connects the thigh muscle to the calf muscle and can tear due to overuse, resulting in severe pain. Also common patellar tendinitis in which the tendons connecting the knee muscle to the bone become inflamed.

lower back injuries They are characterized by pain around the lower vertebrae of the spine. This pain can be compared to what we feel when we spend a lot of time sitting. So, going from a sedentary lifestyle to poor exercise can easily lead to injuries in the gym.

Finally, in the case of the elbow, overuse can lead to painful primary osteoarthritis.

What are they due to?

The most common gym injuries for beginners are the first three. That is, those from shoulder, knee and lower back. Each of them has its own characteristics, but there are also common factors of their origin.

For example, they can all be specified by one overload. Sometimes we lift more weight than we can handle and this ends up affecting our muscles, tendons and ligaments. In fact, excess weight along with bad posture, They are the most common cause of shoulder injuries.

This happens with knees too. However, there is an added factor that also affects the lower back. Lack of basic training. After all, the core muscles are what support us. If we don’t strengthen them, we can put too much stress on our knees, leading to more knee injuries. Before performing exercises that require a lot of stress on the kneesjust like loaded squats or lunges, it’s important that we also take care to strengthen our core.

Finally, pose This is important in exercise. All of the gym injuries mentioned above can be caused by poor posture when performing them.

How can we prevent injuries in the gym?

Not everyone can afford a personal trainer. However, we can, before developing a training program, talk to a professional. It could just be one of the gym workers. If it’s a gym that doesn’t have instructors, we can look for a specialist who can help us learn how to do the exercises in one or more sessions. We’ve already seen this posture is very important.

In fact, it is recommended that your first gym sessions be placement. The most important thing about them learn posturegiving much less importance to weight. By adopting posture, we can increase weight, but this must be done gradually. There’s actually no need to lift excessive weights to experience the benefits of strength training.

We must also give importance heating. A little cardio work to warm up your muscles and get your heart rate up a little is a good start, but don’t leave it there. You should also perform exercises aimed at stretching and strengthening your muscles. This includes, for example, exercises to strengthen the rotator cuff and core. They are very important to avoid injuries in the gym. The specialist who teaches us the optimal posture for each exercise can give us some tips.

You should also remember that if an exercise causes pain from the very beginning, you should not insist on doing it. There are usually many exercises for the same muscle group, so we can change this exercise to another one. something else that doesn’t hurt us.

Get enough rest

Rest is necessary in absolutely every sense. It is important to rest between sets and between workouts. In fact, sleep is important too. It has been observed that injuries are more common in people who do not sleep enough hours. Must sleep 7 to 8 hours a daythis is understandable. But, in addition, you need to rest between exercises.

There is a lot of variability when it comes to resting between sets. It depends on the person and his needs. Ideally, we listen to our body. But overall, according to a 2009 review of the scientific literature, it is possible from 1 to 5 minutes. If the goal is muscle hypertrophy, moderate-intensity exercises can be performed with minute breaks between sets. On the other hand, if you want to improve absolute strength, breaks of 3 to 5 minutes are more reliable. In any case, the main thing is to relax. If we don’t leave time between sets, overload will occur, which can result in injury.

The same goes for the time between sessions. Intense strength training should last between 48 and 72 hours, although this does not mean that we should be sedentary during this time. You can do easier exercises. First of all, you should avoid training the same muscle groups two days in a row, as this can cause the overload that precedes many exercises. injuries in the gym.

In short, if you want to avoid injury in the gym, your best bet is to take it easy, make sure you have good posture, and exercise your entire body. We don’t know how many muscles can be involved in one movement. If some are strong and others are not, we may end up hurting ourselves.