Start slow to avoid exercise injuries, physician warns

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

South Jordan — We’re out of hibernation and ready to go out and work. However, overdoing it can lead to spring exercise injuries and can be weeks or months behind your fitness goals.

Sports medicine doctors will explain how to avoid them.

A new way of life for Melissa Lightfoot after being seriously injured.

“It was November 2019,” said Lightfoot, who lives in South Jordan. She lifted the weight and pushed her hard. “More weight, more deadlift, more back squats. The heavier the better,” Lightfoot said. She just felt a ping on her back and thought, “OK, it will take another 3-4 days to recover, but she didn’t recover.” “

Lightfoot was suffering from four herniated discs. “They looked at my MRI and it looked like I had fallen off the roof or played soccer,” she said.

Dr. Todd May, a sports medicine doctor at Intermountain Healthcare, sees an influx of exercise injuries every spring. “There will be a lot of tendon injuries,” he said. “These tendons take some time to warm up and get ready to engage in that level of activity.”

Achilles tendon damage is most common in the spring, according to a study by the National Institutes of Health.

There are steps you can take to prevent damage.

Start gradually and increase your activity by 10% until you reach your goal.

Then warm up before you work out. “Walking for a minute or two and then jogging slowly for a minute or two will give you a warm-up that moves your hips, knees and ankles in range of motion,” said May.

Leave the stretch until then. According to experts, stretching before training increases your chances of getting injured.

Listen to your body and stop if you are in pain. “If you hit one, two, or three out of ten, that’s okay,” May said. “It’s that your body is used to the activity. You may hurt a little. It’s okay to keep doing it. But if you’re in that four or five or more pains, you “Hey, you need to stop”

Lightfoot is slowly improving, but she has permanent nerve damage. “I go to the roller coaster between losing hope and just keeping fighting because I want to have fun with the girl,” she said.

She warns that anything that happened to her can happen to anyone. “Listen to the warning signs your body gives you and don’t get confused,” Lightfoot said.

XX

Related Links

Related article

Heather Simonsen

Heather Simonsen is an Emmy Award-winning enterprise reporter for KSL-TV. Her expertise is health and medicine, drug addiction, science and research, family, human interests, and social issues. She is the host and producer of the Positively 50+ Initiative on KSL-TV.