3 Habits to Keep You Injury-Free
Are you missing this key to injury-prevention?
Sprained ankle.
Pulled hamstring.
Elbow tendinitis.
Injuries can keep you from being active for weeks, or months.
Which can lead to loss of muscle mass, mobility, balance, and conditioning.
An injury can also throw you out of your normal routine, making it harder to stay on track with the healthy habits you worked so hard to build. Yikes!
While it’s important to know what to do if you get hurt.
The best way to deal with injuries is to prevent them from happening in the first place.
Here are a few simple things you can do to help prevent injuries.
Why This Matters
When your body is strong and resilient, you feel more confident doing everyday things. You trust your muscles and joints to keep up without getting injured, so you can be more active, adventurous and fully enjoy living!
FITNESS SIMPLIFIED
Injury prevention is within your control!
To stay injury-free, your body needs these four things:
1. Strong muscles
2. Flexible joints & muscles (mobility)
3. Good balance
4. Quick reflexes
Fitness Tip to Prevent Injuries
Practice your balance and reflexes every day.
Balance and reflexes work together.
Tiny reflexes in the muscles of your feet and ankles help you stay steady during balance moves.
If you’ve ever watched your foot and ankle making little movements while doing balance exercises—that’s those muscles working to keep you upright!
And if you do lose your balance, it’s your quick reflexes that help catch you before you fall.
The Total Body Extension exercise below helps improve BOTH balance and reflexes.
It’s the perfect exercise to practice if you want to reduce your risk of lower body injuries.
Total Body Extensions
- Set up as if you’re going to do a squat, with your feet parallel and a little wider than hip width
- Swoop down into the squat, sitting back into your hips and swinging your arms backward
- Then swing your arms back forward and up as you powerfully stand up, all the way up on your tippy toes!
Extra tip: Once your balance improves with this exercise, you can add a little more speed when going up and coming back down. Eventually you can do squat jumps to really build your reflexive power. Here’s a great demo of this progression.
Did You Know...
- Total Body Extensions are safe for most anyone since both feet stay in contact with the floor. You’re at very minimal risk of falling or feeling too wobbly while you work on your balance and reflexes!
- Instead of doing random stretches before your workouts (which don’t do help prevent injuries), do dynamic exercises that mimic the exercises you’re going to perform in the workout. Use your full range of motion and focus on activating your muscles, not just stretching them.
- Poor posture or joint alignment can lead to overuse injuries. For example, many women have “knocked knees,” which can increase the risk of “wear and tear” knee injuries over time.
NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED
Under-eating and skipping meals can lead to injuries!
Nutrition Tip to Prevent Injuries
Eat big (produce and protein-filled) meals.
Overcoming the “less is better” diet mentality that has been pushed on women for decades can be extremely challenging.
But being chronically malnourished not only makes your muscles and tissues weaker and increases your risk of injury.
It also zaps your energy.
And when your energy is low, it’s harder to focus and you’re at a higher risk of doing something that could cause an injury.
Think about how athletes stay strong and injury-free.
They don’t skip meals or cut calories.
They eat protein and produce every chance they get to power their bodies.
Eating more of the right foods helps your body stay strong, healthy, and injury-free.
Here’s a great meal idea to fuel you up!
Here’s a great meal idea to fuel you up!
More ideas for robust, nutrient-filled meals:
- Oatmeal with blueberries, mixed nuts and Greek yogurt on the side
- Mixed greens salad with lentils, chickpeas, feta cheese, and olive oil vinaigrette dressing
- Steak tacos with avocados, salsa and black beans
MINDSET SIMPLIFIED
You never think an injury will happen—until it does.
Just like getting a mammogram and having regular skin cancer screenings, it’s important to care for your body before something goes wrong. Prevention is always best.
Be proactive!
I intentionally add certain exercises to my routine for the sole purpose of preventing injuries.
And boy am I glad I think ahead that way.
There have been many moments where I could have gotten injured, but I didn’t.
My body was ready.
This “prevention” mindset makes all the difference for your body AND your confidence!
Mindset Tip to Prevent Injuries
Be proactive, not reactive.
THE TAKEAWAY
The fear of getting injured does not need to haunt you everyday or make you hesitant to live life to the fullest. The simplest things can improve your resilience and prevent injuries from happening.
- Practice your balance and reflexes every day.
- Eat big (produce and protein-filled) meals.
- Be proactive, not reactive.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Self Care Simplified podcast
Ep 408 Got Pain? Figuring out what’s causing your pain
Ep 292 Easy Ways to Reduce the Risk of Injuries from Falling
Ep 287 Tips on How to Lift Heavy Objects and Avoid Injury
SPECIAL RESOURCE
Feel great on your next walk or hike! These simple stretches can be performed outside just before you embark on your next walk or hike, helping to prevent ankle and knee injuries and to fully energize you for a great experience. These moves will take less than 5 minutes, but it will make all the difference in the world!
Warm Up Stretches Before Walk or Hike - Prevent Injuries & Feel Energized!
Until next week... Be strong
