Injury Prevention

As people begin to exercise outdoors again, I see all too often the excitement and overtaking of the “all or nothing” mind. As a coach, I’m always looking at patterns. Movement patterns. Eating patterns. Sleeping patterns. And behavior patterns. I can get into a whole other blogpost about this (adding to the to-do list now), but it’s important to look for patterns that work and to find solutions that help patterns that don’t. Let me try to explain this pattern I see at this time every year…

In the spring and early summer people head out with intentions of walking more, biking more, or running more. It’s wonderful to see because staying active is one of my favorite things to do! But the key to sustainable exercise and movement is understanding the big picture. The goal is to at the very least maintain where you’re at, or see some progression over time. Preferrably, without any injuries or aches and pains. The downside to the awesome groups that encourage people to stay active is that participants compare themselves to others and question their current abilities to where they want to be. Or where they feel they “should” be. It’s great to have goals, but you also have to have an appreciation for the time it takes to reach them safely…without injury.

I say this in probably too many words because people decide to start running, for example, and as a result, start to feel good. So they push themselves more and more each week. They hit a plateau and feel they should be progressing at the same rate as when they started, without the understanding that it takes different parts of our body, different times to adapt and adjust to our training. Here’s a video explaining it in more detail and with a lovely stick figure.

If you have specific questions in regards to your activity and training, please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions!