What are the principles of sports injury prevention?

In fact, the core logic of sports injury prevention has never been to pursue "zero injuries", but to control risks within the threshold that the body can bear and repair itself. All practical guidelines are extended around this core.

I have coached novice runners ranging from 100 to 80. Last week, I met a girl who usually ran 5 kilometers at most. After following the trend, she signed up for a half marathon and then ran a 15 kilometers long distance. She developed patellar tendonitis after not running twice, and it hurt even when she went downstairs. Many people always like to compare themselves with other people's training volume, but everyone's muscle foundation, joint mobility, and past strain are completely different. Just like a novice who has just obtained a driver's license cannot directly start a rally. The intensity of exercise must first adapt to your current physical condition, rather than follow other people's progress.

Speaking of this, I have to mention the misunderstandings that many people have about warm-ups. Many people think that warm-ups are just about running around the playground twice and shaking their arms and legs. Last time, a young man in our gym only ran two laps casually before playing badminton. His rotator cuff muscles were not activated. When he jumped, he exerted too much force and directly suffered a shoulder impact. He had to rest for two months before he dared to take a shot again. What kind of exercise you want to do, you must activate the corresponding parts in advance. When playing badminton, move your shoulders and ankles more. When doing power lifting, you must first wake up the core and small muscles around the knee joint. Otherwise, if you don’t warm up properly and you exert force when you come up, there is a high probability of injury.

There is still a hotly debated topic right now, which is whether or not we should wear protective gear when exercising? One group says that you should try not to wear them during daily training, otherwise you will become dependent, and your own stabilizing muscles will not be trained, and you will be more susceptible to injury. The other group says that you must wear them when you have old injuries or when you are competing with heavy weights, as they can give extra support to the joints. In fact, there is nothing wrong with both of these statements, but the applicable scenarios are different. Of course, you don’t need to wear them for regular training with light weights, and let the muscles work on their own to find stability. However, if you are aiming for a personal best, or if you have old injuries to your knees or shoulders, wearing knee pads and shoulder pads is better than getting injured again. There is no need to argue about who is right and who is wrong.

Another pitfall for many people is that they don’t move during the day and spend five or six hours on the court or in the gym whenever they have free time on weekends. This group of “weekend warriors” happens to be the group most prone to sports injuries. The body's repair speed has an upper limit. If your muscles are usually in a "dormant" state, and you suddenly apply several times the intensity to them, if you accumulate too much micro-injury, you will either suffer an acute injury on the spot, or it will slowly develop into a chronic strain. It is the same as plugging in an ultra-high-voltage charger for your mobile phone. If the battery does not charge much faster, it will burn first.

Many people always think that injuries are due to bad luck. In fact, it is not. Most of them are hidden dangers caused by not paying attention and practicing hard. To put it bluntly, there are not so many fancy rules to prevent injuries. It is just to listen to the voice of your body, rest when you are sore, stop when you feel pain, and don’t push forward rashly. It is better than anything else.