How To Minimize Injury

Every time you choose to participate in sports, you are placing yourself at risk for an injury to occur. There is no denying this. But what if I told you that you could reduce your chances of becoming injured dramatically. You see, most people only think about injuries until it's too little, too late. It only takes a torn ligament, strained muscle, or a broken bone for athletes and parents to realize how important it is to stay injury-free. Because when you are injured, you lose valuable TIME that you can't get back. As you recover, your teammates and opponents still have the opportunity to improve each day, making it harder for you to keep up with the skill level when you eventually do return.

Most parents believe that physiotherapy is the solution for injuries. But in reality physiotherapy is a reactive approach, not a pro-active approach. Physiotherapists main job is to get you back to play as quickly and safely as possible. But wouldn't it be better to find ways not to get injured in the first place? To not have to go through all the hours of physio and stretching.

The secret to not getting injured is making sure your muscles, ligaments, and tendons are strong enough to absorb the high level forces seen in sports. Whether that be a sharp cut on the field, a hit against the boards in hockey, or a hard landing in basketball. The forces are always there, at all age groups and at all skill levels. The stronger that you are, the more force your body can absorb. It really is that simple. Let me give you an easy and straightforward example. What is easier to snap or bend in half? A pencil or a crowbar? Ofcourse, the crowbar requires significantly more force, thus making it much harder to snap or bend in half. Is the pencil more flexible than the crow bar? Not necessarily. The difference lies between the density of the material.

So if more density allows for greater force absorption, how do we create more density in our own bodies? Well, your bones actually have something called bone mineral density. They can literally break down and rebuild itself stronger than before, just like a muscle. The only way to build stronger bones and muscles is by progressively adding more and more stress over time. And the best way to "stress" your body is essentially through resistance training. Lifting more and more weight each week. Safely and effectively. You literally want to bullet-proof your body so that it can better withstand the external stresses of sport.

So if as mentioned earlier, physiotherapy is the reactive approach to injury and strength training is the pro-active approach. The #1 goal of starting a resistance training program is to prevent injury. It seems that many athletes either neglect this point or are maybe just unaware of the benefits. All the other rewards such as strength, power, speed, etc. are simply extra. Staying injury free should always be #1 on the list of goals for athletes in all sports.