They say no pain no gain. All intense training is going to hurt, that’s the nature of the beast. However, there is a major difference between pain and injury. Pain is usually a sign that you’re pushing your body to its extremes, whereas injury is usually a sign that you’ve pushed your body too far. With this in mind, how do you lower the risk of injury when training?
So, the first tip is not to push yourself too far. Think about your limits, and your training regimen should increase on a soft gradient. If you attempt to lift something that’s too heavy and your muscle isn’t ready then all sorts of terrible things can happen.
One way to get your muscles ready is to warm up. There’s some controversy about how warming up actually helps athletes, however it’s probably about increasing blood flow to muscles, getting them ready for intense action.
Diet matters. You can’t have a healthy training regime if your diet is not right. Diet and exercise are two sides of the same coin. A healthy diet is equipped with enough protein, carbs and vitamins and minerals to ready your body for an effective training programme. Food, e.g. milk, can also help with muscle recovery when taken after an exercise session.
Muscle supplements can also benefit recovery and increase performance when training. Whey protein isolate can increase blood flow when training, and can also benefit muscle recovery, preventing injury.
