Put a Stop to Recurring Injuries
May 5, 2020
By Nick Parkinson, M.Ed., AT, ATC, TSAC-F
Henry Ford Health System
Recurring injuries happen — and they're especially common among single-sport athletes or people who focus on one type of exercise, like runners. The reason: You're working the same muscles repeatedly. The end result: Your joints, muscles and tissues get worn out.
Breaking Down Recurring Injuries
Overuse injuries are a big deal. Continuing to re-injure the same muscle groups can take you out of the game entirely and limit your ability to participate in other activities. Here's what you need to know about these all-to-common ailments:
What are Recurring Injuries?
Recurring injuries, also called repetitive and overuse injuries, are injuries that happen repeatedly in the same location. Think along the lines of tendinitis, stress fractures, shin splints and even carpal tunnel syndrome. Common sites include ankles, knees, hips and shoulders.
Who is at Risk for Repetitive Injuries?
Overuse injuries can happen to anyone, but they're more likely to occur among workers who do repetitive motions and single-sport athletes. The risk of these injuries also increases with age. They're more likely to occur if you don't recognize the impact aging can have on your muscles, joints and tissues and modify your activities accordingly.
Why Do Recurring Injuries Happen?
Recurring injuries happen when you overuse the same muscles without sufficient recovery. It's simple body mechanics: If you continue using compromised muscles, you're more likely to get reinjured. And once you get stuck in that same biomechanic loop, it's nearly impossible to recover without changing your routine and learning new techniques.
How Can You Prevent Recurring Injuries?
All sports have a risk of injury. The key is paying attention to your body and taking the appropriate steps to minimize your risk. Here's how:
• Use appropriate gear. Make sure you're wearing appropriate protective gear for the activity you're participating in and choose the right footwear.
• Alternate muscle groups. Instead of focusing on one type of exercise, switch things up. Incorporate low-impact activities, such as swimming, biking and water sports, and make sure you're not overloading any particular muscle group.
• Take rest days. It's important to give your muscles, joints and tissues time to recover. Two days of rest each week is best. If you play a sport, plan to have at least one off day per week and at least one month off per year.
• Strengthen muscles. Conditioning exercises can help strengthen the muscles you need to perform various activities.
• Use proper form. Overuse injuries are sometimes related to improper form during activity. Work with a professional to ensure you're using proper body mechanics and get back to your usual activities gradually.
Play it Safe
The best way to avoid recurrent injuries is to not get injured in the first place. Recover during the season — even if it means missing out on some play. It's better to show up to a game healthy but undertrained than to power through an injury and risk reinjury.
Talk to your doctor before starting a new activity or ramping up your current routine. If you're at risk of developing a recurrent injury, a professional can provide you with a workout regimen that can help prevent injury.
Most important: Don't let an overuse injury prevent you from being physically active. Instead, listen to your body, consult a professional and pace yourself. Treatment may involve avoiding a specific activity for a period of time, along with hot and cold therapy, massage and focused rehabilitation.
Nick Parkinson, M.Ed., AT, ATC, TSAC-F, is the Supervisor of Athletic Training with Henry Ford Sports Medicine and also leads Sports Performance training at the William Clay Ford Center for Athletic Medicine. Learn more about Nick.
Want to learn more? Henry Ford Health System sports medicine experts are treating the whole athlete, in a whole new way. From nutrition to neurology, and from injury prevention to treatment of sports-related conditions, they can give your athlete a unique game plan.
Visit henryford.com/sports or call (313) 972-4216 for an appointment within 24 business hours.
5 Strategies To Improve Range Of Motion
March 6, 2024
When it comes to health and fitness, regular exercise and strength training get the most attention. But it turns out that improving your range of motion may pay greater dividends, particularly over the long haul.
“All kinds of things can impact our range of motion,” says Jennifer Burnham, an athletic trainer at Henry Ford Health. “As we age, our joints become less pliable, but any kind of surgery or injury can also impact our range of motion. And if you're somebody who sits at a desk all day long, that can affect your range of motion as well.”
Why Is Improving Flexibility Important?
Staying active with regular cardiovascular exercise and strength training is a great way to maintain your overall physical health. But it’s important to remember that flexibility exercises come with plenty of perks, too, including:
- Preventing injury
- Staving off arthritis by lubricating joints and tissues
- Improving posture and balance
"Unfortunately, if you have limited range of motion, you may perform tasks incorrectly, causing other muscles and joints to overcompensate for the lack of mobility,” Burnham says. “Over time, that compensation mechanism can increase the risk of injury.”
To complicate matters, our lifestyles often don’t support our range of motion goals. Many of us spend most of our days sitting at a desk or hunched over a screen. And when we’re not sitting still, most of us are slouching.
What Are Some Ways To Improve Range Of Motion?
You don’t have to be able to twist your limbs into a pretzel to achieve full range of motion. Instead, try to improve on your current level of flexibility with these five simple strategies:
- Pay attention to timing. If you’re not ready to add a stretching day to your workout regimen, consider adding a set of flexibility exercises at the end of every session. Pre-workout stretching is helpful, too, but stretching when your muscles are warm is a more effective way to stave off injuries.
- Focus on mobility and stability. Even if you can do the splits or touch your toes to the back of your head, you won’t be able to hold the position if you don’t also have strong core muscles. “Most people do stabilizing exercises such as strength training and lifting weights without paying much attention to mobilizing activities like stretching and yoga,” Burnham says. “But you really need to do both stabilizing and flexibility exercises to get an effective workout.”
- Do a mix of dynamic and static stretches. Two types of stretches can help you gain an edge when it comes to improving range of motion: Dynamic (an active type of stretching where you’re moving within your range of motion) and static stretching (where you hold a stretch). Dynamic stretching with arm and head circles, side stretches, and hip circles before exercise is a good way to warm up cool muscles and help lubricate the joints. With static stretching such as touching your toes to stretch your hamstrings, the goal is to hold a position for 30 seconds or more. Static stretches are often best performed after a workout when your muscles are warm.
- Try foam rolling. Foam rollers act almost like a rolling pin to smooth out tight muscles. Used correctly, they can help improve range of motion — and release stress and tension. You can use foam rollers to prime your body for exercise, or to recover after a workout.
- Aim for balance. If one part of your body is super flexible, focus on increasing range of motion in the opposing muscle group. “So, for example, if your hamstrings are very flexible, make sure to target your quadriceps with flexibility exercises,” Burnham says. “The goal is to make sure you’re aiming for balancing in your body.”
While stretching is an important way to achieve and maintain balance, flexibility and range of motion, it isn’t always intuitive. Not sure where to begin? Consider meeting with a personal trainer or athletic trainer to help you devise a program.
“Watching YouTube videos can be helpful, but if you’ve never done flexibility exercises before, you could overstretch your muscles or find yourself in an incorrect position to stretch,” Burnham says. “And yes, you can create bodily injury by overstretching.”
To find a sports medicine provider at Henry Ford Health, visit henryford.com/sportsmedicine or call 313-651-1969.
Reviewed by Jennifer Burnham, MS, AT, ATC, CSCS, a certified athletic trainer at the Henry Ford Center for Athletic Medicine.