In daily life, perhaps the most comfortable feeling is the 1 hour of sports time that a person spares for himself/herself. Properly performed sports both invigorate the body and are beneficial for health. However, the body has a certain limit and does not like to be forced. While doing sports, both straining the heart above the limits and overstraining the muscles can cause serious problems.
Starting with appropriate warm-up movements before sports helps to balance the body. Appropriate warm-up and appropriate stretching exercises afterwards help prevent injuries.
The benefits of sports are countless. The rate of exercise increases. Breathing becomes regular. The body’s fluid electrolytes are regulated. The body fat rate decreases and the rate of heart disease decreases. Blood pressure is stabilised and there are many more systemic improvements.
If we come to the part that is important for us, there is a possibility that every exercise corrects one side while damaging the other side. The musculoskeletal system, which we call the “walking parts” of the human being, can be damaged at various rates in excessive strain. Failure to warm up the muscles sufficiently or not performing appropriate stretching exercises can lead to many problems ranging from muscle strains to tears during exercise.
Recently, uncontrolled exercises with the philosophy of “no pain no gain” can lead to very serious injuries. If a person’s body causes pain during exercise, there is a balance in that area, like an acrobat moving on a tightrope. The slightest reverse movement will lead to injury.
In fact, there is only one suitable anatomical position for each movement. Loss of this position causes the muscle to work incorrectly and inappropriate movements cause the muscle to tear. The important thing in exercise life is to start everything from scratch and rise slowly. Increasing the weights used in an uncontrolled way, trying to prove itself, can cause many problems from tendon oedema called tendonitis to tendon-muscle ruptures and various ligament damage.
Especially some special movements performed by professional athletes should not be performed by beginners. When you watch sports competitions, you will witness that many weightlifters experience shoulder dislocations and various bone fractures on live broadcast despite their intense muscles. It is not healthy to start new and build muscle very fast. These people have devoted years to sports and have done everything slowly.
As an orthopaedist, we encounter a lot of faulty movements in gyms. We see some of them as injuries in our outpatient clinics. It is possible to avoid most of the injuries by always wearing appropriate clothing, protective wristbands, waist support and trying to do the movement slowly and increase the weight as you get used to it. Listen to the signals the body gives you during sports.
