Sports Injury Prevention Program

The core prevention logic of sports injuries has never been to copy the general warm-up process or buy expensive protective gear, but to "establish a personal exercise baseline first, dynamically adapt action patterns, and intervene in risk signals in layers." This is the most practical plan I have summarized after working in the sports rehabilitation industry for 6 years and having contact with nearly a thousand sports injury patients.

Previously, the sports medicine community has been promoting a standardized warm-up process: 10 minutes of dynamic aerobics + 5 minutes of joint activation + 5 minutes of special stretching, claiming to be suitable for all people. However, in the past two years, many senior coaches in the physical training circle have raised objections. They believe that this process is too redundant for people with long-term exercise habits. On the contrary, it will consume core physical fitness and increase the risk of injury in the middle and late stages of exercise. Both of these statements are actually valid. The core is that you must first understand your own exercise baseline: If you are a newbie to fitness, your resting heart rate is above 80 all year round, and your core muscles cannot even support a 30-second plank, then there is nothing wrong with warming up to the standard of more than 15 minutes. ； But if you have been training four times a week for more than a year and can easily run 10 kilometers in 50 minutes, then the warm-up can be shortened to 5 minutes, as long as the target joints are activated.

Many people have misunderstandings about baseline. They think it just depends on how much weight they can lift and how fast they can run. In fact, this is not true. It also needs to include your history of old injuries, your joint range of motion ceiling, and even your physical condition that day. Last month, I received a patient who was a basketball enthusiast. He usually played the whole game without any problem. But that day he stayed up late and worked all night. At noon, he was forced to play 3v3 by a friend. When he jumped up to grab a rebound, he sprained his foot when he landed and suffered an avulsion fracture. It took him two months to get off the ground. He just completely ignored the fact that "the fatigue level of the day is also part of the baseline". Not to mention him, even professional players are three times more likely to be injured when they are tired than usual, let alone ordinary people.

When it comes to action patterns, the statement "as long as the action is standard, there will be no injuries" is particularly controversial in different fields. The opinion of orthopedic surgeons is that all movements must maintain the bottom line of the neutral position of the joints. For example, when squatting, try to control the knees not to exceed the toes. When doing deadlifts, the back must be straight. Otherwise, there is a high probability of wearing out the joints and injuring the lumbar spine. ； However, many professional athletes in the field of powerlifting and weightlifting will deliberately lift the squat weight by raising their knees over their toes. They will also have a slight lumbar curvature when doing deadlifts. Some people have practiced for more than ten years without injury. In fact, the essential difference is that professional athletes have developed muscle control and joint stability to the point where they can adapt to "non-standard movements", while ordinary enthusiasts do not have this foundation at all, so don't blindly learn other people's "advanced techniques". I once had a student who learned to deadlift by watching videos of professional powerlifters and deliberately bent over to pull. The first time he pulled 80 kilograms, his waist protruded and he lay down for half a month. It was a completely unnecessary injury.

Oh, by the way, don’t believe those short videos on the Internet about “correcting wrong movements in 10 seconds”. Everyone’s bone structure is different. For example, some people are born with shallow hip sockets, and their knees will inevitably buckle in when squatting. Forcibly modifying will injure the meniscus. The best way is to find a reliable coach to evaluate your movements. Movements that adapt to your own body structure are good movements that will not cause injury. Not everyone must follow the same standards.

There are also many people who are too insensitive to the body's signals and always think that "a soreness is normal and the pain will pass once you tolerate it." In fact, the damage is caused by accumulation. Let me give you a layering standard that I use myself. It doesn’t need to be too complicated to memorize: If you only have muscle soreness during exercise, that’s no problem. Just practice normally. ； If there is tingling pain in the joints, snapping and pain, or a feeling of pulling when exerting force in a certain movement, stop immediately. This is an early warning from your body. Don’t force yourself. There are also different opinions here. Some fitness bloggers say that "the pain is due to weak strength, and it will be better with more practice." Don't believe this. I have seen too many patients with meniscus wear and patellar joint softening. They all endured the pain at the beginning and needed surgery in the end.

Many people regard protective gear as a life-saving talisman and think that wearing knee pads and waist protectors can be done casually. In fact, protective gear is only an auxiliary. Your core strength is not enough. No matter how thick the waist protector is, you should dodge or dodge. I have seen people wearing waist protectors deadlift 200 kilograms of lumbar protrusion, and I have also seen people running a marathon without wearing knee pads without any problems. Protective gear can reduce the risk of injury by up to 20%. The remaining 80% still depends on your own control of your body.

To put it bluntly, there is really nothing mysterious about sports injury prevention. Just don’t compete with yourself or compare with others. You exercise for good health, not to show off PR or speed in the circle of friends. If you really need to be injured and lie down for several months, you will have to give back all the training you have done before, and the gain will not be worth the loss. Oh, by the way, if you already have an old injury, it’s best to see a rehabilitation practitioner for evaluation before starting exercise. Don’t practice blindly, otherwise the recurrence of the old injury will be more troublesome than the new injury.