With the beginning of spring, thousands of women go to fitness clubs to tidy up their appearance. After all, the outerwear is going to be removed, and then all the flaws of the figure will be noticeable to the naked eye. It is very important that each workout is not only productive, but also safe.
In an effort to lose calories and strengthen the muscles, you can easily get injured. Recovering after this injury will take weeks or even months. In this material on Geniusbeauty.com, let’s talk about which equipment can become traumatic for women and how to work out correctly to avoid damage to the joints and ligaments.
All gym machines are created in such a way that they can be practiced more or less safely. For experienced athletes, there are no such exercises that carry great risks because they always know their working weight and have a developed muscular feeling. But beginners often do not know how to handle gym machines, they perform exercises with violations of the rules and therefore get injured. Most often, women are injured because of the following gym machines.
Pushing and pulling legs in a gym machine
Women often use this gym machine in hope to reduce the volume of their hips. We have to disappoint you: there is no local weight loss. Hips will decrease only if you lose general weight. But getting injured on such a machine is quite easy – all you have to do is remove some of the load from the muscles to the ligaments, doing the exercise by jerks.
Smith machine squat
This is bad for both the back and the knees. The problem is that the weight bar moves straight. This movement is unnatural for a person – when squatting, the weight bar usually moves in a curved line.
Lying leg press
It inspires many women and makes them feel strong in their legs since even beginners can lift quite a lot of weight in this gym machine. It is very important not to strain the lower back and not to bend your knees too much while performing such exercises, otherwise, you may get injured.
Rotation of the body in a gym machine
It is harmful to the spine and especially to the lower back. Those who have lumbar osteochondrosis or hernia should avoid this gym machine. Using it, a woman is forced to turn the body separately from the pelvis, and this movement is not physiological.
Hyperextension on the bench
Even exercises without burdens can be risky. Especially if the legs are fastened too high or low, and repetitions are performed at a fast pace. It may cause damage to the knees, spinal column or back muscles.
Safety in the gym
If you don’t want your visit to a gym to be associated with extreme risks to health, you need to follow safety rules. They are simple and versatile. Here is what needs to be done to avoid injury:
- Be sure to do a warm-up before each workout to stretch the ligaments and warm up the muscles.
- After a workout, do a cooldown exercise.
- Do not lift too much weight trying to get the approval of more experienced athletes. Instead, increase it gradually.
- Do not get excessively tired.
- Do not go to the gym if you feel bad.
- Do not train too often, otherwise overtraining can occur – a condition in which the risk of injury increases significantly.
- Do not try to do exercises by fits and starts, especially if there is not enough muscle strength to complete the approach.
- Ask partners or a safety coach to assist you when performing dangerous exercises.
What to do in case of injury?
Stop training immediately. This must be done even if you believe that there is no serious injury. Any pain or discomfort is the reason to go home immediately and return to the gym next time only after full recovery.
Consult a doctor. You may think that you do not have dislocations, fractures, ligament breaks and other injuries that require medical assistance. But you can’t know for sure. Therefore, you need to see a doctor – it will take not so much time, but you will feel calm.
Undergo treatment immediately after the injury. Old injuries are treated harder and longer than fresh injuries. Therefore, if necessary, you must immediately undergo a course of therapy. Today, there are quite effective ways to quickly restore damaged tissues. For example, in the case of joint injuries, it is possible to accelerate the regeneration of cartilage and ligaments with the help of arthrotherapy. This technique involves the intra-articular injection of platelet-rich plasma and hyaluronate. As a result, pain is reduced, reparative processes are accelerated, trophicity in tissues is normalized. Due to arthrotherapy, the patient recovers many times faster.
