Sports: how to prevent injuries?

Whether you're an athlete or an amateur, practicing a sport is an excellent way to stay active and healthy. However, if you're not careful, injuries of varying severity can prevent you from progressing.

Table of Contents:

• Progressivity

• Warm-up

• Recovery

Progressivity is the fundamental principle of sports performance, for amateurs as well as high-level athletes. The training load, as well as the intensity or duration of your sports session, must increase gradually throughout your training program and even over your years of experience. The principle of training progressivity is one of the essential factors in sports injury prevention. The body needs time to adapt and become stronger. If you push too fast and too hard, you risk overtraining, injury, but also stagnation or even regression of your sports performance. One of the most common overtraining injuries is stress fracture. And this happens even to the best of us! By taking time, you'll ultimately progress faster than someone injured six months of the year. It's not only in children's tales that the tortoise ends up beating the hare.

Whether you practice an endurance sport (running, cycling, swimming, …), a strength or explosive power sport, warm-up should be the first step of each of your training sessions. And no, this is non-negotiable ! A good warm-up should last between 10 and 20 minutes. It prepares the body for the upcoming effort.

Warm-up has several objectives:

• Gradually increase heart rate;

• Prepare joints and muscles for exercise;

• Increase blood flow;

• Improve range of motion, muscle coordination, and reaction time.

These few minutes of warm-up are sufficient to significantly reduce the risk of injury and improve your performance. Similarly, at the end of your session, remember to set aside 5 to 10 minutes for "cool down" recovery to bring your heart rate back to normal. This recovery time will also facilitate the assimilation of your sports session and trigger the sports recovery process.

Training stresses the body. It's recovery that allows it to adapt to these stimuli and thus progress through a supercompensation process. This shows the importance that recovery plays in sports performance and health in general ! Yet, many of us focus everything on training and neglect recovery. Whether it's hydration with the famous post-match beer, short nights, or fast-food abuse, our lifestyle habits aren't always oriented toward recovery. While we shouldn't fall into the trap of orthorexia (obsessive eating disorder fixated on healthy foods) and perfectionism, some changes can help us recover better and avoid sports injuries :

• Sleep : it allows the body to repair tissues after a training session. Although the duration of sleep needed varies by individual, it's estimated that a restorative night's sleep should last between 8 and 9 hours.

   

• Hydration : it contributes to the elimination of waste from the body and the delivery of nutrients to cells. Drinking water or beverages rich in electrolytes helps replenish fluids lost during exercise. Drink regularly (without excess) during and after your session to avoid cramps and dehydration.

   

• Nutrition : a varied and balanced diet provides the body with the nutrients necessary for recovery and replenishing your energy reserves. Ensure you have a balanced intake of macro-nutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, fats) and rich in micro-nutrients (vitamins, minerals, trace elements).

By prioritizing sleep, hydration, and nutrition, you'll thus avoid a large majority of sports injuries.

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