Avoid Injuries in the Gym

The Top 5 Ways to Avoid Injuries in the Gym

The Top 5 Ways to Avoid Injuries in the Gym

Avoid Injuries in the Gym

“No pain no gain” has some truth in it – comfort and progress don’t live in the same zip code when it comes to fitness or rehabilitation.  However, breaking a foot is uncomfortable (ask me how I know), but doesn’t help you make any progress.  Here are the top 5 ways to avoid injuries in the gym:

#1. Don’t drop your weights.  Most people expect me to say something about avoiding certain exercises, or exercise technique, but, statistically speaking, it’s dropping weights.  Weights can bounce, fall in unexpected ways, trip other people, and so much more.  50-65% of all injuries at gyms are caused by dropping weights.  Anti-climactic buzzkill? Yes, but facts are facts regardless of how boring they are.  If you were only going to do one thing to avoid injury, this is it because it’s worth more than the entire rest of this list combined.

#2. Clip in on the treadmill.  Treadmills are the most common cause of fitness injuries at home, but not because they’re inherently dangerous, but because of neglect or apathy.  Most injuries on treadmills are from failure to use the emergency shut off clip.  This is true even if you are walking.  The times I have seen people trip and fall while walking, they ended up face down on the end of the belt while the belt tried to pull their fingers into the danger zone.  The belt kept going and going until someone helped them get up without losing a finger.  If the walker had worn their belt, they would’ve just tripped and fallen, but the belt would’ve stopped.

#3.  Avoid the barbell bench press.  Bench pressing with dumbbells is a very safe and effective exercise, however the barbell changes things.  The risk is holding a heavy barbell while in a vulnerable position – the bar is over your neck and it is literally impossible to safely get rid of the bar, or to get out of the way of the bar.  You are literally stuck. 

Things can go wrong even if you have 1 or 2 spotters (person to help you get started and put the weights away).  At the very first powerlifting competition I attended the officials miscalculated the weight on the bar of the first woman competing.  After the 2 spotters helped her get the bar in position, it crashed on the base of her neck because it was so heavy.  Luckily it didn’t crush her windpipe or cause any damage, but that was just luck.

As a reminder, dumbbells are safe and effective.

#4.  Mind your fingers.  The next most common source of injury is people crushing their fingers in weight stacks on machines in the gym, or rushing to put away weights.  One of the many nice features of the ANCOREs that we invested in for our personal training studio is that you can’t possibly crush your finger adjusting the weights because there’s no stack.

#5. Don’t be a teenage boy.  Overexertion injuries are most common in men ages 18-24.  The brain isn’t fully developed until ~25, and high levels of testosterone can make you feel invincible.  A group of young men competing with each other in the gym is the riskiest of all because nobody wants to be the weakest (even though someone must be).  With all of that said, being pushed to try harder because of positive peer pressure is a good thingNobody works as hard alone as they do with other people around, and women in general (and men over 30) rarely take things to dangerous extremes.

Bottom Line on how to Avoid Injuries in the Gym

When it comes to living longer it’s the boring stuff like wearing a seatbelt, not smoking, not being an alcoholic or drug addict, maintaining a healthy weight and not being sedentary that make the biggest impact.  However effective, these boring things would never put any book on the New York Times Bestseller list.  So it is with gym safety and ways to avoid Injuries in the gym.  Yes, warming up and using reasonable form are important, but it is the boring, common sense stuff above that has the biggest impact on your safety. 

If safety is of interest to you, check out:

·      Are crunches dangerous?

·      Ice or heat?

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