13.24 Safety Practices to Prevent Injury When Active: Equipment, Form, and Recovery

Maintaining and improving the health of your body is the primary goal of physical activity. However, not practicing activities safely may increase risk of soreness, injury, and inhibit your ability to continue making physical activity a regular part of your routine.

Using Equipment Properly

Using appropriate equipment and using it correctly is an important practice. For example, if you’re using exercise bands for resistance training, make sure that the ends are secure and that the bands don’t have any tears to prevent the bands from snapping back and hitting you. It’s also a good idea to wear a helmet if you’re playing a sport or doing some other type of activity that calls for it, such as snowboarding or biking. Proper use of equipment not only prevents immediate injury, but long-term injury, as well. Improper form while using exercise equipment and even improper footwear can result in pain that might impede on physical activity goals.

Tips for Performing Strength and Resistance Exercises Safely

Form is important when it comes to resistance training. Doing exercises correctly is the best way to meet your fitness goals and prevent injury. After all, the goal is to improve your health, not hurt yourself!

• Maintain proper body posture and alignment. If you ever get to a point where your muscles are too tired to maintain proper form during an exercise, stop. Consider doing fewer repetitions or decreasing the amount of weight that you’re trying to lift.
• Perform exercises through the muscle’s functional range of motion. If you feel any joint pain, stop. You may need to adjust your form, or perhaps you have limited movement in a certain joint that warrants a modification or an alternative exercise to work that particular muscle group.
• With dynamic exercises, perform both the concentric and eccentric phase in a slow, controlled manner—for example, two to four seconds in each direction. Not only does this prevent injury, it helps isolate the muscle so that the muscle—not the momentum of the movement—is actually doing the work.
• Breathe throughout the set, ideally inhaling on the eccentric phase and exhaling on the concentric phase. Holding your breath could lead to a dangerous increase in blood pressure.
• Be sure to train opposing muscle groups. For example, if you do exercises to strengthen the abdominals, also do exercises to strengthen the back muscles.
• Perform exercises appropriate to your level of fitness. Individuals who are not currently physically active or are not physically fit should not engage in vigorous activity to avoid injury (US Department of Health & Human Services, 2008), so gradual increases in weight or repetitions are recommended to allow the body time to adapt.