It's an idyllic Sunday afternoon. You bag up your rubber cleats, as usual, and head out to the park for your weekly adult league soccer game. You have been chained to your desk all week, going over reports, and a few hours on the turf will be good therapy. Then comes the first whistle, and your inner athlete springs to life. Your competitive drive adequately stoked, you zero in on the ball in an open-field sprint as an opposing player gives chase. Suddenly, there's a pop. Blinding pain overtakes you as the ball shrinks into the distance, a herd of players stampeding past you as you collapse to the ground. Unaccustomed to this intensity — save, of course, for your weekly game — your hamstring has suffered a significant tear.
Sadly, scenarios like this are all too common in a world replete with weekend warriors — work- or school-consumed busy bodies with a love of sport who live for these once-weekly events. But sport, like life, favors the prepared, and without working toward some degree of fitness and nutritional know-how before stepping onto the field, you could find yourself wading into the sea of recreation-induced strains and sprains.
U.S. Speedskating strength-and-conditioning coach Shane Domer, MEd, CSCS*D, offers a few caveats when it comes to athletic hobbies.
"When you go into something full tilt and you do high-intensity things that your body's not used to, you take it by surprise and end up with strains and things of that nature," he says. "It's not the best idea to do high-exertion things only once a week. If you're not active during the week, and sitting a lot, your body kind of falls asleep and it detrains itself."
Instead, Domer recommends making time during the week to take some small doses of preventive medicine. Luckily, it’s nothing that you can't do at home or at the gym. Here are his six best tips for lowering your risk of injury.
1. Be Specific
Swinging a bat, for example, takes a great degree of power and torque. If you're not spending time strengthening the muscles responsible for that kind of motion, you're setting yourself up for disaster.
"It's a matter of specificity,” says Domer. "If softball or baseball players engage in some rotational exercises, their bodies can build the stability and strength necessary for those sports. It just depends on the type of activity."
That pricey road bike will be a little easier to handle if you spend some time on it, or on a stationary bike, during the week, riding at like intensities and durations. Whatever it is that you will be doing on the weekend should be practiced to some degree on other days of the week in order to prepare your muscles — to "wake them up," says Domer — for what lies ahead. It is in the shock of new and unfamiliar activities that muscles and joints get out of whack.
2. Be General
Nearly every team sport requires some amount of running, with sudden starting, stopping, or cutting. That being the case, Domer thinks that there are a few training activities that almost any weekend warrior can implement.
"Running activities are great," he says. "If it's football, if you're running different routes, doing some agility patterns during the week in a controlled environment would prepare your body to do those things in an open environment."
So whether it's a treadmill or simply running around the neighborhood, putting one foot in front of the other should help the large muscles of your legs fortify themselves for a variety of demands. The cardiovascular side of running also provides you with the benefit of not getting left in the dust when it matters most!
3. Be Strong
Strength is a vital component of any active pursuit, according to Domer. Training to be strong in your particular activity not only can help you perform better but it can also help you limit the amount of time you spend on the sidelines with an ice pack.
"Strength training routine is a big component in injury prevention because you're forcing your body to stabilize your joints while you apply force," says Domer.
One exercise Domer recommends across the board is the lunge. By performing a variety of lunges where you move through space — static lunges are not allowed — you improve your running stride as well as your ability to exert your will over the opposition.
"Some strength exercises might include forward, backward, lateral, and crossover lunges, because you're engaging a lot of the same musculature you're using when you're competing in ground-based sports," says Domer. "Squatting is great because your feet are in contact with the ground and you're having to extend at the knee and hip."
And what about "core" exercises?
"I like loaded exercises like squats, deadlifts, and Olympic lifts because they force your core to stabilize your hips and back," says Domer. "It's more preventive and gives a higher overload to your core than just isolated core exercises themselves."
4. Train Your Brakes
While some people might not realize it, most sports injuries don't occur as a result of sudden, explosive movement — quite the opposite actually.
"Braking is something that happens in a lot of sports, and that's where a lot of injuries happen," says Domer. "Cutting-type activities, where you're having to change direction on a whim, have to be progressed into. Basketball is interesting because you're jumping and landing — you're gonna jump up, rebound, and then land. There's a great deal of force absorbed by your body when you land. So you should train for it by doing simple jumping exercises — which can be done single leg or with two legs — so that when you come down, your ankles and knees will be stronger."
5. Don't Neglect Food and Water
Forget about your mid-afternoon, post-burrito bonk — you stand to really get yourself in trouble if you’ve failed to fuel properly before your favorite athletic activity.
It all starts with water. Sipping water throughout the day should become habit. But this becomes even more crucial for your athletic ventures, when your body will sweat out more than it would during your work week. Drink 14–20 fl oz of the clear stuff a few hours before your event/activity. Then try to have another 8 fl oz or so as you're getting loose. Over the course of an hour of activity, expect to down another 13–26 fl oz just to keep from getting dehydrated. If you get thirsty, chances are your performance is already suffering.
Also make sure to have some carbs just prior to game time, such as a
PowerBar® Performance Energy bar and some fruit. If it's hot or humid, or if you expect to be exerting yourself for over an hour, consider sipping a sports drink, such as an
Ironman RESTORE™ sports drink, to provide electrolytes, carbs, and fluids.
Failure to observe your need for fuel and fluids can result in dehydration, which can impact not only your performance but your body's ability to avoid cramping and out-of-sync movements that can lead to muscle tears and injuries to connective tissue.
6. Stretch
Injuries occur when your muscles go further and faster than they are capable of. That's why it's important to employ at least a minimal amount of stretching in your weekly schedule.
"Stretching and keeping a healthy range of motion are good," says Domer. "It's not necessary that you be a gymnast as far as your range of motion goes, but a healthy range of motion is definitely going to help with the injury prevention side of things."
Mix in a good, general warm-up prior to activity, followed by some basic, active stretches such as arm circles, trunk rotations, and leg swings, to increase blood flow to major muscle groups. You can save the long, static stretches for post-workout or post-event. Warm muscles are more pliable, and stretching too much before activity can acutely diminish strength.
Topics:
Pre-Workout, Hydration, Recovery, Muscle, Sports injury, Training advice
Rights of Usage Policy