Injury Protectors: Priming ALL Athletes to Perform

Exercise injuries are becoming more and more prevalent as time goes on. Not only elite athletes are susceptible to exercise injury, but even the casual, every day individual attempting to live a healthy lifestyle can suffer from these injuries. Some are easy to heal, while others can take a lifetime to come back from. Our mission as Injury Protectors is to guide every individual to injury prevention so that these ailments can be prevented, letting every individual I've the healthy and fruitful lives they deserve! 

Who we are and what we do;

 

We are the injury protectors. We are a team of scientists studying the effects of exercise and its benefits. Our focus is to study, learn, and preach the effects on exercise injures, how they happen, and what can be done to protect them. We are spreading awareness of every athlete of every discipline. 

 


5 Most Common Types of Injuries

1. Ankle Sprains

2. Groin Strains

3. Hamstring Strains

4. Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome

5. Knee Injuries- ACL Tear

(Hoffman, 2008, Ankle sprain, para. 1) 


Preventative Exercises

Ankle Sprain: The ankles are the first joints of the body to make contact with the ground. Making sure the muscles supporting the ankle joint are strong and steady is key in preventing ankle sprains. To reduce the chances of ankle injuries performing these 5 exercises at least 2-3 times a week or before every workout would be beneficial. 

  • Ankle Circles
  • Ankle Alphabet
  • Calf Raises
  • Shin Raises
  • Single Leg Balance

(Dillon, para. 1) 

 

Groin Strains: The two biggest components of avoiding groin injuries are having good flexibility and good strength. Also implanting a proper and thorough warm up is key in preventing groin injuries. 

  • Flexibility/Strength: ball squeezes with different sized balls, concentric adduction/abduction using an elastic band, slide board (side to side with or without weight), and one legged-lunges.
  • Warm-up: stationary cycling, groin stretching, sumo squats, side lunges, and kneeling pelvic tilts

Hamstring Strains: Hamstrings can occur from not conducting a proper warm-up, and not fully getting those muscles loose and warm. Going into physical activity without properly warming up the hamstring muscles, can increase the changes of a hamstring strain or pull. Implementing a proper warm-up along with certain exercise will eliminate the chances of experimenting a hamstring strain or pull. 

  • Alternative leg swings
  • Ball Leg Curl
  • Box Jumps
  • Bridge 

Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome: Shin splints are described as acute pain in the shin and lower leg, which is caused by extended and prolonged running, usually on harder surfaces. These are two preventative exercises to reduce the chances of experiencing shin splints:

  • Standing heels together with your toes pointed outward, while slowly raising up onto your toes and steadily lowering yourself back down. 
  • Standing heels apart with your toes together, while slowly raising up onto your toes and steadily lowering yourself back

(2 Exercises to Prevent Shin Splints, para. 3) 

 

Knee Injury- ACL Tear: The Anterior Cruciate Ligament helps stabilize the femur over the tibia. An ACL can tear by a hit in contact sports, however tears can also result without contact due to weak muscles, poor balance, or inability to decelerate. There are three major exercises that can help prevent the occurrences of ACL tears.:

  • Single Leg- Bridges
  • Single Leg- Reach
  • Vertical Jumps 

(Holman, 2013, para. 3) 

Benefits of a Warmup

  • Injury Prevention
  • Mental Preparedness
  • Enhanced Performance

In order to help prevent these common injuries, a dynamic warmup is extremely beneficial. A good warmup consist of a cardio component to elevate heart rate and increase temperature. Follow this with dynamic movement of increasing intensity to help prepare for the desired activity. In addition to preventing injury this will help increase mental preparedness and enhance performance.