OUCH!!!

One of the first injuries that usually occurs to a person when they begin heavy weight training is the in their joints, and especially their shoulder joints. At the local gym that I workout at, almost every other guy who has lifted weights for any extended amount of time has had a shoulder injury of some sort and it is usually in the joints rather than a muscle strain or tear. It is a common mistake that many people have and I have recently experienced it so it is a problem that a couple of months ago I could relate to myself.

Prevention...

There are several prevention methods to avoiding a joint injury. The first precaution you should take is learn the proper form when you are preforming an exercise. Many people do exercises very wrong and do not even realize it be cause either their training partner showed them the exercise incorrectly or they have never even seen anybody doing it properly. And even though it is less common, some people can even hurt thenselves on machines by not ajusting it properly, beacause the odds ar that you are not the same exect body structure as the person who was on the machine previously.


Another thing that people do is get a sperman mentality and try to push weight that they cannot support. Just because you CAN lift a certain weight does not mean your joints CAN support it. Your joints are like your muscles and even though they may be weaker to begin with, you have to build up the strength in them as well because often times peoples muscles get stronger than their joints quicker than they realize and that will often times lead to injury.

Now...

For those who have already experienced joint injury or are experiencing an injury in your joints at this very moment, there are steps to recovery. It is always good to have an open mind toward going to a doctor and getting it checked out if the pain presists over some time or is too servere. If the injury is not to the point that you cant exercise, the best thing to do is usually lower the weight that you are using and maybe not use as much free weight until you can build up the strenghts in your joints. Use a weight that you can preform a fairly high amount of reps for more than a couple of sets until your joints are strong enough to move up in weight and don't jump up to quick if your not sure of your recovery. One other thing that might help aid you from preventing further injury is to supplement yourself with produst that help libricate the joints such as Fish Oil and Glucosamine. Glucosamine can also help used to support mobility and flaxability in the joints also.

If you are lifting weights and you haven't had a injury yet then consider yourself lucky but with the proper precautions you can keep your joints healthy and injury free.