Preventing Injury

Preventing Injury
I frequently get ask how I get better at a certain movement or how can I get stronger or faster. There are
usually drills that I can give or a que to make a movement more efficient. But one thing that gets
overlooked is recovery and preventing injuries. If we are injured all progress stops. There are tons of
information on this topic so I wanted to go over 3 things we can do to help us in this area of fitness.
Warmups, Range of motion, Rest.

Warm-up
Why do we warm-up? This is the time we take to prep our bodies for the movements in the workout
and to increase heartrate and body temperature. When we warm-up our minds and bodies are more
prepared to increase intensity in a safe way reducing muscle soreness and injury. When we warmup our
blood flow is increased to your muscles making explosive movements easier and less chance of injury.
You also will generate more power and help your range of motion. I want to point out that stretching
and warming up for a workout are 2 different things and both are important to add to your exercise
routine but do not mistake stretching for 15min as your warmup there should be time for both.
The longer the workout the shorter the warmup needs to be, and the shorter/sprint workouts need
longer warmups. This isn’t always to case depending on movements and skill level, but it is a good
guideline. So please make sure you are coming in with enough time to get your body prepare for the
workout of the day.

Range of Motion
If we want to get faster and stronger, we must have the range of motion to achieve the exercise.
Warming up is a big part of this. But we can also benefit from taking a step back and going over the
basics to improve our technique, flexibility, and overall ROM. When we continue to move in
compromised positions just to say we RX the workout we break down our bodies and will in time lead to
injuries. That is why we have scaled options use them. I recommend video yourself doing movements so
you can see how you are moving and have a coach also look and give feedback. And if a coach is giving
you feedback or correcting your movement during a workout take a sec and try to fix that movement
pattern. We are telling you so you can improve. Sometimes it is a quick fix and other times it takes a
while to reprogram bad patterns, but if you take the time to work on it not only will your body thank you
for it you will see improvement.

Rest
This seems to be the easiest or hardest thing for people to do (me included). You really need to make
sure you are taking time throughout the week to rest and recover. Take 1 or 2 days each week to let
your body heal and recover from all your awesomeness you achieved during the week. We are not
machines and cannot go 100% all the time without our bodies making us take a time out. Does a rest
day mean that you have to sit around and do nothing? Not at all, do some low intensity cardio (hike,

walk, swim). This could be a great day to get some yoga in and work on flexibility and mobility. So just
like I tell you all at the whiteboard before a long chipper “rest because you want to not because you
have to!”

-Coach Kannon