How to avoid injuries when doing weight training and running; check out

Torn ligaments. Stretched muscles. Overuse injuries. With every new exercise routine comes a new risk of injury, whether it’s straining a muscle while lifting weights or developing knee pain from running or tearing a tendon during calisthenics.

With an estimated 8.6 million sports and recreation-related injuries each year in the United States, these fears are not unfounded.

However, before you let that fear stop you from starting a new exercise routine, the good news is that most sports injuries are “overuse-related rather than traumatic, meaning they typically don’t require surgery.” said Matthew Matava, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine physician at Washington University in St. Louis (Missouri).

With the right precautions, you can develop a complete exercise routine that maximizes benefits and minimizes the risk of injury. To give you an idea of ​​the exercises that make you especially vulnerable to injury, we turned to a combination of sports doctors, physical therapists and coaches to get a consensus on the most common mistakes people make and how to avoid them.

Don’t bend your back in deadlift

The deadlift – in which a person starts in a squat position, pulling a weighted barbell off the floor into an upright, locked position – is one of the most popular lifts. However, its simplicity is deceiving.

“The deadlift is one of the best tools when done correctly, and one of the most dangerous things if done wrong,” said Cameron Apt, a sports coach at the University of Rochester.

One of the main mistakes people make is rounding – or hunching – their backs. The deadlift begins with the lifter in the squat position, with a neutral spine, meaning the back is neither arched nor rounded.

During this movement, even a slight curvature of the spine can put excessive strain on the muscles in your lower back, potentially throwing your back out or worse.

“It’s not necessarily that people have bad form, it’s that they underestimate how dynamic and hyperfocused the deadlift is,” said Femi Betiku, a physical therapist at the New Jersey Center for Physical Therapy Riverdale. “They’re distracted for a split second, then their back hunches a little, and then ‘BOOM!'”

For the less experienced, there are a number of alternative exercises that can offer similar benefits and put less strain on your lower back. This includes hex bar deadlift, where the wide bar wraps around the lifter, reducing the amount of pressure on the lower back.

For anyone looking to do deadlifts, paying close attention to form is essential. When working with beginners, Apt often has clients practice the movement without weights. “We’re going to watch people for weeks before we give them a weight to move,” he said.

It’s also essential to listen to your body and adjust as needed, especially if fatigue is starting to affect your form. “There’s nothing wrong with forcing fatigue,” said Betiku. “It’s about being aware that ‘I’m tired, I have to focus 100% on my form’.”

The bench press can cause shoulder or chest injuries.

When most people think of weightlifting, the first thing they think of is the bench press, in which a person lies down on a bench, pushing the weight up. The bench press is so iconic that comedians – from Chris Farley to YouTube star Mike Tornabene – have used it to poke fun at bodybuilders. But it can cause rotator cuff injuries if done incorrectly.

The rotator cuff is especially vulnerable because many tendons, ligaments, blood vessels, and nerves run through a narrow path, called the subacromial space, between the shoulder blade and the humerus. “It’s a very small space that’s almost like a road,” said Lauren Shroyer, an athletic trainer for the American Council on Exercise who specializes in chronic injuries.

A common mistake is to extend the shoulders up, almost like stretching in a chair, which can put enormous pressure on this area. Shroyer said this can lead to impingement syndrome, a painful condition caused by the shoulder blade rubbing against the rotator cuff.

The same can also happen if you lift the bar above your head instead of your chest. To avoid this, she said, make sure your arms are shoulder-width apart, shoulder blades tight in your back, with the bar lowered to mid-chest.

Another common problem is lifting too much and too fast, which can cause an acute injury, such as tearing your pectoral muscle. When this happens, the person usually has a popping sensation, loses weight control, and then “one nipple points one way and the other points the other,” Matava said.

“We’re going to see a lot of this,” he added, often in inexperienced lifters trying to pull more weight than they’re prepared to.

Pectoral muscle tears are very painful and tend to happen when the weight is lowered onto the chest. While lowering a weight or your own body may seem like the easiest part of an exercise, it also creates a greater risk of injury because the muscles are contracting and stretching.

That risk of injury also increases because those who practice feel the hard part has been done and are less focused, said Michael Maloney, a sports medicine physician and orthopedic surgeon at the University of Rochester.

Other examples of this type of risky move would be lowering the bar to the ground during a deadlift, walking or descending a hill, lowering the body during a pull-up, or returning the torso to the ground during a squat. To avoid this, train yourself to stay focused throughout the exercise.

Be careful how often you’re running

In his office, Matava most often treats weightlifting and running injuries. “Of the two, I probably do more racing,” he said. Most of these bruises are related to overuse. “For running, it’s the rule of the lot,” Matava said. “Too many miles, too many hills, too little rest.”

A common problem in runners is knee pain, specifically patellofemoral pain syndrome, often referred to as “runner’s knee”.

Runner’s knee is thought to be a nerve irritation caused by an imbalance between the quadriceps, hamstrings, and hip muscles, which misaligns the kneecap. To avoid this, gradually increase your distance and incorporate regular strength training.

The good news is that while runner’s knee is a problem, research shows that running can serve to strengthen the cartilage in your knees, with runners less likely to develop arthritis than non-runners.

Another overuse injury that happens frequently among runners is stress fractures. This often occurs when a practitioner tries to add too many kilometers too quickly without taking enough rest days.

The impact of running causes microfractures in the bone which, when given time to heal, lead to stronger bones. However, if a runner starts running more miles without taking rest days, these microfractures build up until they cause injury.

Both injuries tend to happen because runners “did something out of the ordinary compared to what they were trained,” Matava said.

He typically sees these stress fractures in people who have just started running or who decide to ramp up training quickly. A good rule of thumb is to limit mileage increases to less than 10% per week.

Be careful when making dynamic movements

One of the most common acute sports-related injuries is a torn meniscus, which at least 10% of people will experience in their lifetime. Menisci are discs of cartilage that act as shock absorbers, located at the ends of the femur and tibia.

Most injuries are caused by cartilage degeneration, which makes it more susceptible to injury, and can happen during squatting or twisting movements like box jumps, weighted squats, or during sports like tennis, football, and basketball.

Such breaks usually happen during very dynamic movements. The risk increases when these movements are performed too quickly, with too many pounds, or without having practiced the movement enough. For example, in the squat, if a person has “too much weight and goes down too deep, the meniscus can tear,” Matava said.

As with other injuries, the risk increases towards the end of your workout, when fatigue starts to set in. Shroyer learned this lesson the hard way when he put too much effort into lifting weights.

“I was getting tired, but I said to myself, ‘You can do one more set,'” she said. Instead, she tore cartilage at the end of her femur, an injury that required surgery and six weeks of immobilization.

When it comes to making progress in the gym, there’s a tension between pushing yourself to get better and pushing yourself to get an injury. Shroyer’s advice is to focus on the idea that “next week I can do more because I’ve given myself time to recover,” she said. When it comes to an exercise routine, the pro recommends mixing consistency with gradual progression.

“I always encourage people to do something they feel confident in,” Shroyer said. “Take it slow, but do it anyway. Exercise can put a person at risk for injury, but not exercising puts you at risk for health problems.”

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves