LITTLE ROCK — Musculoskeletal injuries are a natural part of living a physically active life. If you exercise long enough, you’ll likely encounter a nasty sideliner that could derail your program.
A certain degree of injury prevention can, however, decrease the odds that you’ll sustain an exercise-related injury.
This week, I’ll discuss some key components of injury prevention training, and I’ll introduce one of my favorite knee-strengthening exercises to date.
The shoulder is one of the most injury-prone joints for regular exercisers, due to its unstable ball-and-socket design and because of the movements performed during a typical weight-training session. The shoulder is one of the body’s most mobile joints, but its freedom of movement comes with a price. In order to allow for a wide range of motion, the shoulder is quite susceptible to strains, sprains, dislocations and even muscle tears.
To prevent such injuries, it’s important to maintain muscular balance around the shoulder joint. You should train the muscles of the back (for example, latissimus dorsi, posterior deltoid, midtrapezius) with equal intensity and focus as the anterior muscles of the torso (pectoralis, anterior deltoid). This training pattern will help to ensure that imbalances don’t develop and cause shoulder instability.
In addition, specific exercises that target the rotator cuff muscles can be beneficial in preventing shoulder injuries.
The knee is another commonly injured joint. People who participate in sports involving a great deal of agility tend to be more prone to acute knee problems such as ligament damage. However, the knee is also quite susceptible to cartilage breakdown over time, which can be exacerbated by impact forces of repeated aerobic activity suchas running.
Long-term knee breakdown can be prevented by mixing up your aerobic activity between weight bearing (elliptical machine), not weight bearing (swimming, biking), and impact weight bearing (running). Many longtime runners are faced with debilitating knee issues that could have been prevented with appropriate variation in their aerobic exercise.
It’s also possible to perform specific exercises designed to strengthen the joint and thus prevent injuries. This week’s exercise is a great way to develop strong, stable knee joints through an appropriate weight training technique.
1.
Sit on a leg-extension machine and select a medium resistance.
2.
With your left foot on the floor, use the right leg to lift the pad. Fully extend the right leg against the resistance.
3.
Once you reach full extension, hold your leg in place by contracting the right quadriceps.
4.
Hold this position until you are no longer able to keep your knee at full extension. This could take 30 to 90 seconds, depending on the resistance chosen.
5.
Repeat the same exercise with the left leg.
6.
Do two sets to failure with each leg.
The Isometric Leg Extension is easy to do - unless you do it well. It should be done with focus and intensity. The goal is to challenge your quadriceps to maintain full extension for as long as possible.
I would recommend performing this exercise at the end of your leg workout to avoid muscle failure during other movements such as the squat or leg press.
Matt Parrott has a doctorate in education (sport studies), a master’s in kinesiology and is certified by the American College of Sports Medicine.
ActiveStyle, Pages 29 on 01/18/2010