6 Common Exercise Mistakes That Increase Injury Risk (and How To Avoid Them)

Exercise is one of the best ways to protect your health, but you risk injuring yourself if you don’t take the proper precautions.

There are strategies that can help you keep your injury risk as low as possible. Before getting into a new sport, for example, learn about the demands it will place on your body – and then make sure you have enough strength and flexibility to meet those demands. If you are planning a new workout routine, determine your baseline strength and endurance before hitting the weights or hopping onto a treadmill. Knowing your limitations can help avoid unnecessary injuries.

Let’s look at several common mistakes to avoid while pursuing your exercise goals.

1. Pushing Too Hard, Too Fast

You’re probably excited when you start a new exercise routine or sport. But don’t push your body too far. You have to give yourself time to adjust. If you decide to start running, you wouldn’t attempt a marathon on your first weekend. If you are a novice weightlifter, you don’t attempt to bench press your full body weight during your first trip to the gym.

Before getting started, determine your baseline abilities and then set intermediate goals between where you are and where you want to be. It may take months of exercise or workouts for your body to develop the strength and endurance needed to get there safely.

2. Skipping Muscle Recovery and Rest Days

Rest builds strength, and this is particularly important for strength-building exercises such as weight training. When you work out, it creates tiny tears in your muscles. Giving those muscles a day of rest allows them to rebuild and grow stronger. But if you keep pushing them day after day, it can increase your risk for muscle strains and other injuries. Resting can also be mentally refreshing – allowing you to perform at a higher level in future workouts.

3. Skipping Warmup and Cooldown Routines

This wasn’t so important when you were a teenager. But the older you get, the more important it is to get your body ready for physical activity and then to help it recover afterward. Start by spending 10 minutes or so warming up with light exercises that use motions similar to your upcoming athletic endeavor. Don’t worry about doing a lot of aggressive stretching, which can actually strain your muscles if they aren’t yet warmed up. Save the stretching for your cooldown period, where you will spend another 10 minutes or so focusing on the muscles that were used during the workout.

4. Neglecting Hydration and Pre-Workout Nutrition

Your body functions at its best when you have strong blood flow to your muscles. Staying hydrated with fluids helps your blood vessels do their job. And when you sweat, you lose electrolytes (sodium and potassium), which can lead to muscle cramps. Proper nutrition also gives your body the fuel it needs to sustain intense exercise activity.

5. Exercising with Improper Form or Poor Technique

Every exercise program – particularly weightlifting – is designed to target specific muscle groups. Before you even start an exercise, it’s important that you understand which muscles you will be using. The bench press, for example, is designed to build strength in your chest and upper arms. If you don’t use it correctly, you could hurt other muscles, without gaining the intended benefits.

One strategy with any new exercise is to start with lighter weights, so that you can learn the proper form before adding to your load. You can check out online videos from reputable sources to gain a better understanding of how you should approach any exercise. It may also be valuable to spend a little time with a trainer to make sure you are on the right track.

6. Focusing Too Much on One Activity

When you focus exclusively on one sport or one type of exercise, you can increase your risk of injury when your lesser-used muscles are suddenly forced into action. Every muscle group in your body has an opposing muscle group – while one is contracting, the other is relaxing. If you only work one side of that equation, you can set yourself up for injury. For example, if you only work on your chest muscles, you will create an imbalance with your back muscles, which can lead to poor posture and injury. This is one of the reasons many professional athletes spend time (cross training) with other sports. It helps protect against injury by reducing muscular imbalances.

This content is not AI generated.