What are the principles of sports injury prevention?

I have been involved in running and ball sports for almost 8 years, and I have talked with many professional team doctors and senior enthusiasts. The core principles of sports injury prevention that are generally recognized are essentially centered around "preventing body tissues from bearing stress beyond the tolerance threshold" and cover every node in the entire exercise process. There are no fancy methods, but are all based on practical experience.

What is most easily overlooked by novices is the principle of adaptation between athletic ability and project intensity. A new runner I brought along last year, with a BMI of 28, usually walked no more than 2 kilometers, wanted to do a 10-kilometer night run with us. After a long time of persuasion, he agreed to start with a combination of 3-kilometer brisk walking and jogging. But there was another guy who didn't persuade me. After running 4 kilometers that day, he developed inflammation due to excessive load on the patellar tendon. He became lame for almost half a month and even had a hard time squeezing the subway to work. This is essentially what we often say about "step-by-step". Don't take other people's training volume as your starting standard. People with a large body weight should first choose knee-friendly projects such as swimming and elliptical machines when they first start exercising. People who usually sit for a long time should not jump into high-intensity interval training. Adaptation is always the first step to prevent injuries.

Choosing the right program that suits you is only the first step. Dynamic load regulation during exercise is the core of avoiding acute injuries. I was chatting with the team doctor of the Provincial Badminton Team before, and he said that the most common mistake for young players in the team is to bear the signs of fatigue. The last time a young player played in the team competition, his ankle was obviously sore. The same goes for ordinary people. When playing ball or running, if you feel that your joints are wrinkled and your muscles are obviously weak, don't push yourself to make progress. Under fatigue, the stress on your joints is more than 30% higher than usual, and injuries can occur in an instant.

Many people think that everything will be fine after exercise. In fact, most chronic strain injuries are caused by failure to recover properly. There is actually some controversy over the method of recovery in the industry. One group believes that as long as there is no obvious tingling or swelling after exercise, active recovery such as slow walking, foam roller relaxation, and light stretching is better than lying down and still. It can speed up the discharge of metabolic waste and avoid fascial adhesions. ； The other group believes that as long as there are symptoms of discomfort, the vehicle must be braked within 72 hours to avoid secondary injuries. In fact, both statements are correct, but it depends on the specific situation. If your legs are just sore and swollen after training, it will definitely be comfortable to roll the foam roller for two rounds. If it is already swollen to the point where there are pits when you press it, it is safer to follow the doctor's advice and brake. I used to have a golfer who would not stretch his shoulders after practicing. He always felt that "you should lie down when you are tired". After working hard for more than half a year, he finally developed a shoulder impingement. It hurt even to lift his hands to put on clothes. I regretted it so much.

In addition, there is another thing that many people do not want to do because it is troublesome, which is the risk-forward response principle. To put it bluntly, you should wear the right equipment for each sport. Wear knee pads when playing volleyball, elbow pads when playing tennis, and jogging shoes with enough cushioning when running. Don’t wear sneakers to play basketball just to look good, and don’t play badminton with bare wrists because the wrist pads are boring. I have seen too many amateurs who feel that protective gear is cumbersome. In the end, they develop tenosynovitis and can’t even hold chopsticks, which makes it even more troublesome. If you are playing high-risk sports such as skiing and rock climbing, mastering the correct posture to release force when falling in advance will be more effective than any protective gear.

To put it bluntly, these principles are not obscure academic theories. They are simply about respecting the feelings of your own body and not taking risks. If you can really do this, you can avoid more than 90% of unnecessary sports injuries.