Exercise is a form of stress – it’s actually termed ‘Eustress’. Eustress is positive stress, stress causing some favourable effect to your body. None-the-less, it is stress, and stress has the potential to cause damage and degeneration. The beneficial effects of exercise far outweigh the potential negatives, but some forms of exercise need an extra degree of care to ensure that the specific exercise puts the ‘eu’ in eustress.
Responsibility must be taken by the athlete to ensure that all they favourably control all variables at their disposal to ensure that the chances of suffering from overuse and accute injuries are minimised.
More often than I would like, my clients and athletes approach me with complaints of their injuries, and more often than THEY would like, their complaints are met with a complete lack of sympathy. This lack of sympathy on my behalf stems from a lack of responsibility on their behalf – a lack of responsibility in controlling the variables to prevent injury.
These people like to train hard. They like to train often. What they don’t like is taking the time to complete the seemingly ‘menial’ routines and habits required to remain injury free. What are these habits? I cover most of them in my post 11 Ways to Maximise Recovery from Intense Exercise. A major part of this is the completion of structured Pre and Post Exercise Routines.
If these preventative measures are taken, then I will show sympathy. I know the individual has taken ownership of their own health and has done everything within their power to ensure correct musculo-skeletal function. In this case, the injury requires further investigation – we must examine the underlying mechanics of the injury and explore biomechanical or physiological dysfunction. At Range of Motion, we do this using the Range of Motion Injury Management Plan. This allows us to assess, diagnose and respond to injury.
The lesson is this. Take a bit of responsibility for the variables you can control. Blame not the program, the exercises, the coach or any other external variable. Take ownership. Fail to do this and place the cause of injury squarely on your shoulders.
