Lifting Day 4

Injuries occur from simply overexerting your body by doing simple things like using bad techniques while too much heavy weight. When lifting, make sure pressure is being put on the part of the body it's supposed too. Straining your muscles occurs when lifting too much weight, and "Spraining occurs when ligaments in a joint are torn, either by an unnatural range of movement (such as when you twist your ankle) or by a combination of extreme pressure and twisting" (Susan Saliba 43). I have experienced spraining with my ankles when trying to perform lunges with too much weight. Although, I was fortunate enough to drop weight before any serious injury occurred. 

The form in my second picture is good because it allows me to lift heavier weight without the worry of injury. The weight goes down close to my chest, my feet are flat on the ground, my arm goes a little below 90 degrees and the bar is straight. The form in first picture has three major errors making it dangerous to add weight to the bar. An error that occurred was the tilting of the bar, along with the bar resting on my chest. Another big error was how my wrist was tilting, which could potentially create permanent damage, especially since I'm lifting at a young age. The bones in my body are still developing, making it dangerous to lift with incorrect form and injure myself.

Something my brother would always do was lift while he was injured. "If you are injured, stop training immediately, and protect the injured area from further damage by restricting all unnecessary activity" (Susan Saliba 45). While you’re resting, you should make sure to take that time to properly treat your injuries. One way of doing this is by applying ice. Ice is good to “Reduce any swelling around the injury” (Susan Saliba 46). Another way to help reduce swelling is the elevation of muscles. “Elevation reduces the amount of blood flowing into a limb, which in turn helps reduce swelling” (Susan Saliba 47).

Severe injuries should be treated with R.O.M. exercises (range of motion). R.O.M exercises could start out painful, but should ease up on pain when the injury starts to heal. There are numerous different R.O.M exercises. You workouts should start off with no weight,  but as the injury gets better you can move back on to strength training but with these same workouts. One R.O.M workout is demonstrated in the picture below.

Works Cited

Saliba, Susan. The Basics of Weight Training. Weight Training, Mason Crest

     Publisher, pp. 1-64