Follow These Four Rules To Train Injury-Free
The gym isn’t the safest of places to be in, especially if you want to lift for decades to come. If you’re a gym frequent, you need to be careful around the unforgiving iron. A little carelessness inside the iron paradise can cause a big injury.
An injury can be a major setback as it can rule you out for a long time. Not being able to train might sound like a life sentence to a pro or someone on a deadline. Follow these four rules if you want to train injury-free.
Learn The Right Form
To remain injury-free, you need to get the basics right. Some people make the mistake of joining a gym and head straight to the weight room without learning the right way to perform the exercises.
While it’s impossible to eliminate the chances of an injury while training, you can take the necessary steps to bring down the probability of suffering a setback. Once you learn the right form of performing the exercises, you can carry on the right approach to when you lift heavier weights.
If you start on the wrong foot, there are higher chances of getting hurt and it might take a long time for you to unlearn the wrong ways. Focus on learning the basics, and the weights will come later.
Drop Your Ego At The Entrance
The infamous gym fail videos are mostly the result of inflated egos. Letting your ego get the better of you in the weight room can cause more harm than good. If your goal is to build muscle, you should focus on the muscle contractions and mind-muscle connection more than the amount of weight on the bar.
For some people, the amount of weights they can lift is directly proportional to their self-esteem. While a few people lift heavier than they correctly can to feel good about themselves, the others do so to impress someone – mostly a girl.
Drop your ego at the front door while entering the iron paradise and don’t be reluctant to ask for a spot when you might need it. Performing an exercise with lesser weight is better than watching your gym fail video go viral on YouTube and Instagram while lying in a hospital bed.
Warm-Up Before Training
Numerous people make the mistake of heading straight for the dumbbells as soon as they step into the gym. Some of these people consider warm-ups to be a waste of their time. If you’re serious about training, warming-up should be a ritual before starting your workouts.
Stretching and warming-up before a workout help relax and pump blood into your muscles. Spending 15-20 minutes on warming-up before your working sets can dramatically reduce the chances of an injury.
Use Lifting Gear
There has been some widespread craze of “raw lifting” by gym bros around the world. Raw lifting includes not using any assistive gear while you lift heavy weights. The gym bros try to overdo lifting heavy by lifting heavy – raw.
Using assistive gear like a weightlifting belt, wrist and knee wraps can drastically reduce the chances of an injury. Apart from the reducing possibility of an injury, the gym gear can help you better target your muscles as they reduce the involvement of the secondary muscles.
Header image courtesy of Envato Elements
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