Avoiding the two most common lifting injuries at He's Fit

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Avoiding the two most common lifting injuries

Posted October 17, 2007 at 12:00 PM by Mark Scott

Section: His Fitness, Strength Training, Injuries & Rehab

military press There are some very common weight lifting injuries that are often seen among those who aren’t fully aware of what they are doing in the gym. It is important you make yourself aware of these and do your best to avoid them at all costs because if you don’t, you likely will find yourself sidelined with an injury.

One of the best things you can do to prevent an injury is to first always ensure you are properly warmed up before beginning. This is an absolute must because attempting to weight lift when your muscles are cold is never a good option for anyone.

Furthermore, when lifting you should only push yourself as far as you can comfortably go. It might be tempting to try and push even more if you are feeling good that day but if it makes you start sacrificing your form, you are only going to end up in trouble. You aren’t going to get the results you want when lifting with improper form anyway so it’s best to just avoid this situation altogether.

Below are two of the most common errors individuals make with their lifts and what you need to be sure you are doing in order to correct it.

Military Press

When performing this lift, you really need to watch your lower back. As soon as the weight moves up past the shoulder region and above the head, many people will have a very strong tendency to begin to sway their lower back, creating an arch and placing a tremendous amount of pressure on it.

When performing a military press, take the time to stand next to a mirror with your side facing the mirror and watch yourself as you drive the weight upwards. This will allow you to see what the posture of your back looks like throughout the lift.

Additionally, think of squeezing the bum muscles, pulling up the hip bones and sucking in the stomach. This will help you maintain the flat backed position that you want throughout this movement.

Squat

The next exercise where you commonly see injuries taking place is during a squat movement. The big issue here is knees not tracking properly over the toes and as such, knee pain results.

This can also be due to a muscular imbalance between the inner and outer thigh. As you squat down the stronger side tends to pull the knees in that direction, hence they move out of alignment.

In order to prevent this from occurring, while squatting, first make sure your feet are approximately shoulder width apart. If they are much farther than this or are a lot more narrow then you are definitely going to see issues. If you do happen to have very widely set hips a slightly wider stance is probably acceptable, but if you do start experiencing pain then this is something you should look into.

Next, watch how far down you are squatting. While it is best to try and go as low as possible in order to fully recruit the glute muscles, going too far will simply place too great of a stress on the knees of some individuals and they will not be able to handle it. If this is your case then it will be best to back off and only come down to about ninety degrees or potentially not even that far if you are really having difficulties.

So be sure you watch out for these common errors next time you are in the gym. Being injured is by no means a fun process and back and knee pain can take a long time to overcome. Prevention is always the best method when it comes to injuries so be sure to follow these tips.

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