Hidden Dangers at the Gym for your Back and Body

If you go to the gym to get healthy and fit, look good, feel goodand pamper your ego, then I urge you take a minute to think aboutsomething, Do you remember the old adage, "People like to dowhat they are good at and comfortable with"? Are you living that oldadage at the gym? Most people do. They have a set routine at the gymand it's that routine coupled with the mechanics of the equipment thatcan lead to trouble--either very quickly or over time. Here is the problem. Working out can lead to injury, no question. The challenge is in knowing how it can happen and how to prevent it. There are two basic categories of injuries: the sudden accident (a.k.a. trauma) and what can be described as the Process Injury (in other words, the long, slow development of a condition.) My goal is to protect you from both types of injury. Traumatic Injury at the Gym Let's start with the 5 basic concepts of working out in order to show you how easy it is to injure yourself in a traumatic way. * Intensity: How hard you work out.
* Frequency: How often you work out.
* Duration: How long you work out.
* Progressive Resistance: Using more resistance with each set you perform.
* Progressive Overload: Starting at a higher level of resistance at subsequent workouts. Each one of these principles has the ability to cause injury. But when you couple them with having a trainer or workoutpartner egging you on to eek out one more rep as you get fatigued, yougo into all kinds of contorted positions to get the job done. All of a sudden, Bam-O! A hundred different injuriescan happen. And they will take a long time to heal. You will havedefeated the entire purpose of going to the gym in the first place. Please understand that the body can tolerate a lot of abuse before you pay the penalty of an injury. Just know that injuries can happen in seconds and the effects can last a lifetime. Injury as a Process Traumatic injuries do happen. But more often it is the slow progression injuries that are far more sinister and very well may be the root cause of some traumatic injuries. So I would like to focus on what happens over the long term so that you can make a change now to prevent injuries. Ihave spent the last 10 years of my life dealing specifically with whatare called muscle imbalances and their effects on the back and body. Indescribing the concept I will use some examples and try to make youaware of what possibleinjuries you could be facing. Let mebegin by describing what muscle imbalances are and then give you anexample. Muscle imbalance can be defined as strength and flexibility ofone muscle group compared to the opposite muscle group. So if youcompare the strength and flexibility of the quadriceps to the oppositemuscle group, the hamstrings, in nine out of 10 people the quads willbe overly strong and overly tight compared to the hamstrings. That'sthe definition of having a muscle imbalance. How Back and Body Injures Start! Thequads are always going to be stronger then the hamstrings, so you maybe wondering what is wrong with that. Let me give you some possibleexamples of what can happen if your quads are out of balance with yourhamstrings. As I give this example, understand that there are otherimbalances that often happen at the same time to develop thiscondition. For example, the hip flexors and the glutes can be out ofbalance too. When the quads are out of balance with thehamstrings, there can be uneven and excessive wear and tear on thecartilage and ligaments of the knee. The knee will not functioncorrectly and conditions will develop to the point were running orphysical activity will be impossible. Second, balance betweenthe quads and the hamstrings keep the pelvis in a neutral and stableposition. But when you have overly strong and overly tight quads, yourpelvis will be pulled in several different directions. In some casesthe whole pelvis is pulled excessively forward. In other cases one sideof the pelvis comes even more forward and the hip goes too high,causing the pelvis to rotate. This is very common in physically activewomen over 40. When the pelvis is not in the most neutral andmost stable position possible, the spine may go into abnormalcurvature. It is that abnormal curvature caused by the muscle imbalancethat can set you up for hip problems, SI joint problems, back problemsand sciatica. How Does This Happen? The very equipmentyou are using at the gym is either directly or indirectly helping youdevelop your muscle imbalances and setting you up for future problems. Letme give you some examples. You cannot help but develop raw quadstrength when you use the leg extension machine. As I asked you before,do you stick to exercises thatyou like to do? Let's face it, everyone hates to work the hamstringsbecause they are weak and it is hard to do. So most people overworktheir quads and under-work their hamstrings. Another example isthe calf raise machine. Again, the calf muscle will always be strongerthen the muscles in front of the shin, but when you blast your calvesand do not work the muscles in the front of the shin you are settingyourself up for planter fasciitis, heel spurs, Achilles tendonitis and even knee problems. Letme recap. Working out with gym equipment puts enormous unnatural forcethrough the joint, restricts movements to linear motions and can veryeasily overdevelop muscle groups. This combined with the development tomuscle imbalances�is a hidden root cause of most if not all physicalinjuries at the gym. Action Steps Aswith any new desire to make a change in your life, you must first havea starting point. There is no easer way to get started then to take aninventory of where you are right now. It will not help you at all tomake subjective assessments about yourself and not be honest, so I havea few suggestions: * Take photos of yourself.I would not always recommend this. But in cases were your health andwellness are at stake, why not? Here is what you can do. Put on abathing suit and have someone take photos, front, back and both sides,making sure that you see head to toe. Then take a look--not with ajudging eye but a caring eye, looking for areas that are not inbalance. For example, is your head straight? Is your head over yourshoulders or is it forward of your shoulders? Are your shoulders level?What about your hips, are they level? (Look at your side view and suitline as a guide.) Those are just some of the areas that youcan gauge yourself on. You can also use the photos as a reference ofhow you are now so you can look back at how you were then. * Feel the pain. The best way to assess pain isby asking yourself how you feel in the morning, during the day and atnight. With this one you will need to be honest with yourself, and Isuggest that you write this down. You can even mark up the photos youtook by writing on them at the body part or parts where you feel pain. * Listen to your body.If you are working out and you feel a little something and you're notquite sure what it is, rest assured it's your body telling you it doesnot like what you are doing to it. * Build your awareness.If you live with fear, worry or doubt about your weight, health ormedical condition, the best way to overcome that it is to build yourknowledge on the subject. Study what others already know. And rememberto always stay enthusiastic about the process. That is the secret toachieving your goals. If you do not mind I would like to end with a short story of a one of my clients. She is a 43-year-old professional with a desk job. One day she decided that she was going to lose 20 poundsby summer. So she joined the gym, where she took a spinning class, usedweights and at the same time trained for a 6K run on Memorial Day. Shedid this for about four months. Fast-forward to race day. She startsthe race and within the first mile she knows she is in trouble. But shedecides to finish the race because thepain is not that bad. Iget a call that night. She tells me that she cannot walk and asks ifmassage would help. I go over that same night. When I get there she ison churches. She cannot walk. She has foot pain, knee pain and theeffects of Piriformis irritation. I agree to work with her and only dowhat she can tolerate. I then urge her to see a doctor. On Mondaymorning, she does. At the appointment she was diagnosed with abone spur in her heal, a stress fracture on her tibia by the knee andwicked Piriformis Syndrome. As I write this, two months later, shestill has not been able to return to any physical activity. Listen to your body its telling you something...