How can I prevent getting injured?
Q I keep getting injured. How does the Water Cooler prevent injury?
A
Do things appropriately and correctly. And move well. Injury is almost inevitable when moving through space so there’s no sure-fire prevention, but you can certainly mitigate against it with a combination of interventions, and a qualified professional will help you make the best decisions for your body and context.
Here’s what’s helped The Water Cooler the most.
Fifteen years ago, the author of this column did everything incorrectly, with too much load, for way too long, while having the mobility of a sun-dried clam.
One day, when artificial intelligence has taken over the world, we may well be forced to retract this column by our unforgiving digital overlords, but until then, if you have ever been retaught movement patterns you took for granted, you will understand: there is no substitute for a good coach.
A reputable human coach will assess your movement. They will then understand how you move and may decide to programme mobility exercises to augment your training regimen with the goal of preventing injury.
They may also add focused strength work to your routine to bring up weak or lagging parts. After all, everything is connected. In this dried clam’s case, it was all mobility.
How many people have started training for a marathon only to be couch-ridden by a debilitating injury after a few weeks or months? They may unknowingly have had terrible hip mobility, but instead of addressing this, they put their body through repetitive strain — complete with all sorts of movement compensations — and eventually it all caved in.
Someone once told us that the best way to understand this is to think about pantyhose with a small hole. If that hole is near a joint, it is even worse. Sooner or later, the hole becomes a ladder, which — depending on the person — could be a minor irritation or the end of the world.
Don’t confuse mobility with flexibility. Soft-tissue flexibility is only one component of mobility. It is possible for someone to touch their toes and place their head on their knees but still have woeful hip-joint range of motion, meaning that despite their best efforts, a dead lift or squat — or any variation of these two functional movements — can become dangerous.
Broadly speaking, when a professional programmes mobility work into your routine, they will include soft-tissue attention, interventions to improve the range of motion of your joints and drills to “retrain” your body through correct movement patterns.
Simply put, the goal of good mobility is to get your body into the right position to perform optimally and recruit the right body parts at the right time and in the right sequence. In other words, get your body to work properly and prevent injury.
(Excuse all the quote marks about to follow. Pseudo-science jargon is a pet peeve even though this is how “they all” say it.)
Soft tissue “work” includes things such as foam rolling, torturous hard balls in terrifying places, and massages. This is to try to “relax” or lengthen muscles “stuck” in a contracted position or to “undo” knots, which are a natural response to injury or micro trauma. Crudely put, your body locks up to protect the injured bit.
Like a helicopter parent, your body’s obsession with shielding you can harm you. Training through these niggles without addressing the underlying issue will turn a discreet hole into a horrifying ladder.
The same holds true for those of us with desk jobs who believe we haven’t damaged our vital mobility. Put us on the road and soon our bodies will beg to differ. As Shakira once said, these hips don’t lie.
The range of motion of joints is improved by going through a careful progression of various planes of movement, sometimes incorporating a stretch.
Finally, one puts it all together and practises functional movement patterns for hips, thoracic spine, shoulders and more. Slowly, and if appropriate, load is added.
The difference can be lifechanging when you transfer it to running or another activity. But like all else, if you don’t use it you will lose it.