I hate being injured!

I know that is probably a rhetorical statement for most of us, yet how many of you right now are sitting in front of your computer with some sort of neck/shoulder/low back/knee injury shaking your head because you hurt yourself doing some mundane household chore? By my guess, probably quite a bit of you.

In my experience as a trainer, I’ve come across hundreds of people with all sorts of injuries. I myself have experienced more injuries than I would care to fess up to, so my knowledge on the subject is quite extensive. For my clients, it’s a pain in the neck (no pun intended) when they come to me complaining about some ailing injury and tell me they need to “take it easy today” because of it. Then they would rather mask the pain with medication then try and get to the base of the problem.

For most of us, the reason we experience so much neck/shoulder/low back/knee pain is because of imbalance and lack of flexibility. I know that I struggle to remember to stretch when I’m done working out, and usually pay for it the next few days with extremely stiff and sore muscles, so I can imagine a thorough stretching routine might not be in the cards for you either.

Most of this pain we experience, though, is due to an imbalance of our muscles. To give you a quick anatomy lesson, each muscle in your body has a yin to its yang, so to speak. Your biceps, which act as a pulling muscle, has the triceps, a pushing muscle, as its counterpart, your quadriceps have your hamstrings, and so forth. Most people have a problem training only those muscles they see in the mirror (especially guys on this one). Everyone wants a stronger “core” and a six pack and do a million crunches a day, yet fail to realize that your lower back is also part of that core and failure to train it causes imbalance. Your abdominals get tighter as a result of the exercise, and because your lower back is weaker, it “gives” so to speak and pulls it out alignment.

To correct this, you need to train what is called your “posterior chain”.

This is a group of muscles that runs from the base of your skull into the back of your knees. It includes your trapezius, erector spinae, glutes, and hamstrings, to name a few. Each of these muscles overlaps one another and works to straighten your posture and move your hips. So for those of you with neck problems, is probably due to the fact you shrug your shoulders all day and they tend to pitch forward, causing your trapezius to become tight. When the muscle is stretched, it wants to go back to “normal” and tries to correct itself, causing a “stiff neck”. Or for those of you with a bad lower back, its probably due to the fact you have weak glutes, so when you bend over to pick something up, instead of using your hips, you arch your back causing the muscles to “pull” past their comfort zone. Better yet, those with knee problems probably experience pain because they never train their hamstrings, causing extreme tightness around that knee joint (where most of your thigh muscles insert) and pulling everything out of whack, to put it in technical terms.

But don’t worry, there is a solution. Here is a list of exercises that should be a staple in your workout routine.

1) Squats – Place the bar across your trapezius. Take a wider-than-shoulder width stance, break at the hips first, bend your knees until your thighs are parallel to the ground, and then return to a standing position. Make sure your heels stay planted. You do NOT want to come up on your toes during this exercise. Repeat several times over…

2) Deadlifts – My favorite! Place a bar on the floor in front of you. Take a shoulder width stance and bend down, keeping your butt down and your back straight, grab the bar just outside of your legs. Using your LEGS to start the motion, pull the bar straight up as you go to a standing position. Return the bar slowly to the floor keeping a good posture.

3) Good mornings – Same position as a squat, but this time you want to keep your knees “soft” (not locked out but not bent). Break at your hips again, you want to slowly bend forward in a bowing motion, keeping your head and chest up. Try and get your body almost parallel to the floor, and then using your hips stand yourself back up.

4) Hamstring curls – Think bicep curls for your legs (and being that your hamstrings are technically biceps, that shouldn’t be hard). Any gym will have a hamstring curl machine, pick a moderate weight and make sure you’re going through the full range of motion.

5) Shrugs. Take any barbell or pair of dumbbells. Pretend someone is asking you “who stole the cookie from the cookie Jar?” and pull your shoulders up to your ears as if to say “I dunno…” Repeat.

By doing these few exercises, and stretching out your low back/hamstrings on a regular basis, not only can you alleviate any nagging pain you might have, but you will also prevent future injuries from occurring. Get on it!

-The Wellness Guru

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