Reduce Sport Muscle Injuries | Pain Free Body

Reduce Sport Muscle Injuries
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It’s that time of year, tournament time, when the season’s taken its toll and various muscles are in differing stages of messed up. It doesn’t have to be that way. There are a number of strategies that can help keep you in tip top tournament shape, ready to sprint or skate without worrying you’re going to ‘blow’ a muscle.

Warm up. I’ve had experiences both warming up and not. In university we had a basketball practical where the instructor said, ‘I don’t believe in warming up, so if you want to do it, do it before class.’ Of course we couldn’t because there was no time between the prior class and the practical. So, when we did sprint drills cold many of us toppled with seized quadriceps or hamstrings. Youch.

I’ve learned the lesson again this broomball season when, due to circumstances, I wasn’t able to do my usual warming up. What happened? Hamstring issues. Which carried on to tournament weekend. After the first game when my muscle pain increased because again we had very little warm up time, I made a point of walking up and down the halls for at least 5 minutes before each game plus ice warm up. Not much time really, but combined with the other strategies here, I found by our fifth game my hamstring was in much better shape than it was going in.

Warm up ‘then’ stretch. I can’t tell you how many people still reverse the order of this one. And yes, it has been ‘stretch then warm up’ ever since Jesus was a cowboy. But the exercise physiologists have researched this one and have concretely found that stretching a cold muscle can actually tighten the muscle, setting the stretchee up for greater risk of injury. So always, always, always,

Stretch warm. You’ll make great flexibility gains this way. And feel free to stretch when your muscles are super warm, such as in between plays or just after the game. When the muscles are smoking hot and pumped with blood, you’ll be amazed at how well you can stretch and keep the gains.

PNF stretch. The most common PNF stretch variation is known as contract-release stretching and is a great way of tricking your muscles into lengthening. As Wiki says, ‘This technique utilizes the golgi-tendon organ, which relaxes a muscle after a sustained contraction has been applied to it for longer than 6 seconds.’ It does this because of the ‘stretch reflex, which causes a muscle to relax when its tendon is pulled with too much force.’ This type of stretching even releases trigger points, those naughty knots.

How to: Do a nice prestretch for 20 to 30 seconds, then do an isometric contraction for about 20 seconds. Take a deep breath, relax, and stretch again for 20 to 30 seconds. Repeat.

For example, if you’re stretching your hamstring, put your foot up on a bench, hinge forward at the hips and stretch for 20 to 30 seconds. Then do the isometric contraction by pressing your heel into the bench by contracting your hamstrings with about 20 to 30% effort. After the 20 seconds take a nice deep breath in and as you exhale, relax your muscles and slowly increase the stretch.

Trigger point release. Yes, it does hurt, but it works. You can get someone else to do it for you or you can pick up The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook to learn how to self-release every muscle in the body. Trigger point release is one of the fastest ways to release muscle knots even those long term nagging ones. Just remember, trigger point release works well in combination with the other strategies but if you stretch cold and forgo a warm up, you’ll likely reverse the trigger point release gains made.

And, too cool, trigger point release doesn’t need to be painful anymore. The new therapy, Massage Cupping for Trigger Point Release, a method that uses Chinese Medicine cups to release tight and knotty tissue, is an extremely effective and much less painful way for your massage therapist to release your trigger points.

Don’t overtrain. This can seriously set you up for injury because your body becomes exhausted and is less able to repair all the micro traumas your muscles incur with your chosen physical activities.

The Curtin School of Physiotherapy site gives the following definition, ‘Overtraining, also described as chronic fatigue, burnout and staleness has been defined as an imbalance between training/competition, versus recovery. Alternatively stated, it is too much training or competition combined with too little time for regeneration.’

About.com Sports Medicine gives the following overtraining warning signs:

• Washed-out feeling, tired, drained, lack of energy
• Mild leg soreness, general aches and pains
• Pain in muscles and joints
• Sudden drop in performance
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Decreased immunity (increased number of colds, and sore throats)
• Decrease in training capacity/intensity
• Moodiness and irritability
• Depression
• Loss of enthusiasm for the sport
• Decreased appetite
• Increased incidence of injuries.
• A compulsive need to exercise

As well, if you’re overtraining your heart rate will be elevated higher than normal while exercising and at rest, and it will take longer for your heart rate to drop to normal after exercise.

These strategies are the basics for healthy pain free muscles. For more strategies head to Reduce Sport Pain. Keep your games pain free!

Photo Credit: Vincent Pelaccio
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