11 tips for injury prevention in bodybuilding, part 2.

It’s the second part of the series you will learn even more tips to prevent injuries and keep progressing safely. You can find the first part here – “11 tips for injury prevention in bodybuilding, part 1“.

7) Be focused.

When you perform the exercise you must focus on technique and the muscles you train. So your focus must be in 2 places at one time. Contradicting already, isn’t it? What you need to know is this – when you perform isolation movements with moderate weights you can completely focus on the muscles you train and squeeze them intensely, feel the tension and growth. In big compound movements or in any movement with maximal weight you must first focus on technique, and only a portion of your attention should go to the muscles. It’s not hard as it seems, you will get accustomed easily.

Also there should be no talking and especially laughing during the exercise. It’s easy to lose concentration and one mistake could cost you plenty. Save the jokes for the shower-time.

8) Handle over-training properly.

If you feel really tired and beaten up it’s wise to take a day off. If you still went to the gym, don’t push yourself to the limit, because you’re asking for injury. Over-training is common reason for injuries. To learn how to deal with it read one of our articles – How to deal with overtraining effectively.

9) Dealing with extremely heavy weight and progress

Lifting huge weights and progressing rapidly is surely great for our ego’s, but it’s bad for our well-being. First of all, you are not a powerlifter, and your goal isn’t to lift as much weight as possible. Your goal is to build a great body. And for that, medium-heavy weights will work just fine. Lee Haney, 8-times Mr. Olympia never had a single injury throughout his long bodybuilding career and that’s because he used moderate weights (some can even call them small). Maybe we can argue about this approach, but we definitely can’t argue with the phenomenal results Lee had and the fact that he was injury-free. One of his famous quotes was – “Train to stimulate, not annihilate.”.

And secondly, our tendons don’t grow stronger as fast as our muscles do, so injury is inevitable if you are trying to lift more and more weight on every training. Stop race for the bigger lifts. It’s formidable, but foolish.

10) Having a proper diet.

Well-balanced diet is essential for your health. You also need to add supplements like multivitamins and fish oil to your diet. It will keep your bones and tendons in great condition and keep your muscles recovering rapidly. It’s nice to use a supplement for your tendons and joints, occasionally (2 packs/bottles a year, for example). Glucosamine + chondroitin is a good one for that purpose.

11) Understanding pain signals.

When you are lifting and you feel rising painful discomfort in your muscles (not the usual pump/overload), it’s smart to stop right away. You might have a tiny tear muscle/tendon tear, which could get worse if you continue the exercise that caused it in the first place. Makes sense, but some people ignore these pain signals and continue through pain. Remember, only “good” muscle pain is great, caused by pressure, squeezing, pump and lactic acid. Everything else is “bad” pain and it should be taken care of. If you experience slight pain in your joints, such as knee pain/elbow pain, use wraps. If you don’t have them, better stop the exercise and try another one, which puts less stress on your joints. Hard training causes small inflammations in your joints and tendons, so occasionally you will feel painful symptoms, but it goes away within days if you have proper rest and diet.

Please use these tips and avoid being injured! Better to be safe than sorry.