Anna Stan, Author at Health Coaching

most common causes of injury:

No warm up before training session

Excessive loading which applies forces to your tissues for which they are not prepared

Overtraining

Poor exercise technique

Muscle weakness or imbalances

Lack of flexibility (causes decrease in joint Range of Movement and limits body capabilities)

Previous injury

Inappropriate equipment

Accident

Genetic factors – may influence shape and structure of your joints

Joint laxity – condition which can make it difficult to control and stabilize your joints.

Best way to prevent an injury is to address points listed above and

prepare your body for exercise:

Asses your level of health and fitness or rather get a professional to assess those two for you.

Choose or get an exercise professional to choose and create a specific training program suited for your capabilities and your chosen sport requirements (if that’s the case).

Always warm up properly before your training.

Make sure you eat well and get enough rest to recover from your workouts.

Stick to the exercise program designed for you – build up gradually and don’t overdo it.Now we got to the concept of periodization.

Periodization is the process of varying a training program into specific time intervals to bring optimal gains in physical performance. The aim of periodization is to achieve improved biomotor skills such as: strength, endurance, speed, motor performance, and also muscle hypertrophy. In short words- to achieve improved physical performance. Periodization is a concept developed to aid a competitive athlete in reaching a peak physical performance at a particular point in time, such as for a major competition. The same concept works if your goal is overall health and fitness.

How does a periodized training program help preventing injuries?

If properly designed, a periodized training plan will engage a person in gradually progressing physical activity allowing all body systems to adopt in their pace to new stimulants. Muscles grow stronger and bigger, bones, tendons and ligaments become stronger, nervous system learns how to recruit more efficient neural connections, motor skills and coordination improves.

On the contrary, if a person trains with an extensive load instead of increasing it from low to maximum gradually their bone density and strength may decrease. And the loss in bone strength leaves them prone to injuries (fractures).

Quite a similar story is true for tendons. They adopt new stimulants over a long period of time. If the muscle growth exceeds the rate of tendons adaptation, tendons may not become strong enough to withstand the force of the muscle movement.

Every periodized training plan is based on strength. There are few types of strength. General strength is the foundation for all the rest. If it is not in the centre of attention during early stages of any training plan the body will become susceptible to injuries.

On the other hand, a well-designed periodized training plan allows to build that foundation gradually thus making it possible for the body to adapt to increments in loads and training intensities. That is achieved through improved: neuromuscular coordination, joints flexibility, tendons and ligaments strength and core strength. The body grows stronger and injury is less likely to occur.

Periodization of training plan also allows both progress and adequate recovery. Without this balance a person can reach undesirable state of overtraining which again increases the risk of injury.

As you can see safe training options are available. You can use periodization concept to plan your training smart and stay safe or alternatively, you can put yourself at risk and suffer for a long time.

If you have trouble with weight management then you may like to read the below article.
Make sure you also read about the weight loss basics here.

This article is meant for you
if you’re ready to start a happy (not necessarily easy) journey to a better life.
This comes through building (re-building) stronger connection with your body.

What you feed your body with matters. No doubt about that.
The stuff you consume impacts not only your weight and physical health.
It also largely influences your mental and emotional well-being.

Healthy body sustains healthy mind and vice versa.

The path to a healthy body leads through balanced diet and movement, both done mindfully and hopefully to your enjoyment.

Is balanced diet and exercise the only key to successful weight management?

Let’s take a closer look.

You know that you need to eat well and exercise so you do it as if there was no tomorrow. You have your work life, family life and other affairs to attend to and at the end of the day you feel tired but still wired.
You are stressed.
Stress is any force that puts pressure on your mind or your body and may also include positive events like a birth of your child.

Modern stress factors seem to be present in every aspect of your life.

If you don’t know how to cope with modern stress you are likely to lose the perspective and become very tired yet restless and you can’t even sleep well.
Persistent, prolonged stress is quite serious condition.

Persistent stress causes your adrenal glands to constantly produce stress hormones- adrenaline and cortisol.
If you are feeling tired but wired it probably means that your stress hormones levels had already travelled too high.
Way beyond the point your body can utilize cortisol to balance your energy levels, body weight, emotions, your thoughts and pretty much all the physiological processes in your body.

What actually happens in your body during a stress response?

During a stress response adrenaline kicks in first. Its release into the bloodstream causes reactions such as an increase in your heart rate, blood flow to your muscles and sugar metabolism.

When adrenaline levels start to drop cortisol jumps in and continues to elevate blood sugar levels so that your body has the energy to handle a stress situation.

As a response to elevated blood sugar levels your pancreas releases the insulin to break down the sugar in your bloodstream.

If your adrenal glands remain in the state of heightened alert and continue to produce adrenaline and cortisol the whole process repeats over and over again.

Your immune system becomes suppressed and the chronic inflammation runs in your body.
Your whole system gets well out of balance and after some time you may notice plenty of side effects including fat build-up around your stomach which comes coupled with fat build-up in your blood vessels.

The stress response system was designed for a human to cope with actual threat such as fighting the tiger to survive.
It was not meant to fight the tiger (or rather run away from it) 24/7.
Living 24/7 in a state of heightened stress equals continuously elevated blood sugar.
In simple words it’s too much sugar for the body to consume so it stores this energy excess as fat.

Quite often the fat build-up around waist in people who exercise is a clear sign that they overdo exercise.

If you have a trouble with weight management you need to keep in mind that excessively exercising equals exposing yourself to another form of stress overload.

Let’s look at an example.

Jess was eating pretty healthy and exercised like a madman. The fatty belly she wanted to get rid of persisted to stay around her waist. Jess was suffering from an adrenal fatigue and actually that belly was the smallest of her trouble…

Jess needed to slow down. Neither Jess wanted to slow down nor she knew how to. However, she really wanted to lose that belly. Jess is goal orientated and determined person. We made an agreement. I agreed to coach her only if she cuts back her exercise until advised.
Jess’ program didn’t start with fat loss plan. Her program started with breathwork.
Jess learned to become aware of her breath again and use range of breathing techniques to restore balance in her body.

Jess says “This slowing down thing was the greatest challenge in my life! Everything in me wanted to get up and run while I had to just sit down and pay attention to my breath!! Did I like it? Not at all! At first at least. Yeah, it took a while to bring results. But the funny thing is it worked! This stuff really worked!! And I finally lost that fatty belly without running so much” Jess laughs.

What is the recipe to recover from stress overload and learn how to manage stress in life?

Step out of your own everyday-everyweek-everyyear Matrix.
Learn how to rest and have at least a little bit of a quiet time.
Learn how to be present in whatever you are doing at the time and stop chasing the future. Future will come anyway.

What you must do is to stop running for a while to regain clarity on where are you running so fast.
What do you really want and what your goals actually are? Have they changed while you were chasing them?

There is plethora of practices that can assist you managing stress.
Yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, Qigong or just simple stretching combined with breathing (which also can be taken to a meditative state), I even use swimming meditation.
Anything that works for you to lower the stress level and restore physical nd mental health is good as long as it leads you to the inner stillness.

Only when still and content you can connected with yourself again and regain the ability to manage high levels of modern stress more skillfully and efficiently.

Maintaing healthy body and healthy mind and understanding of the connection between them is crucial to your survival in a modern world.

Author: Anna Stan

How to prevent injuries? The importance of periodization in any sport training.