The dreaded "i" word. By Georgina Willett

05.09.2010

We all love to push ourselves and set ourselves challenges, such as; running 5k, losing a stone, cycling from London to Brighton, competing in a triathlon, running a marathon, climbing Ben Nevis! Whatever your goal no matter how small it may be for some people, to you it is your personal challenge.

To set ourselves up for this challenge we know we need to make some changes to our lifestyle, we join a gym, we get a personal trainer, we train hard and we start to see results! But then, halfway through your training you fear the dreaded I word – Injury. Those niggles start to set in, a slight pain in your calf, a twinge in your knee or an ache in your elbow and what do we typically do, NOTHING, we carry on and say it’ll pass, but will it?

Think of it this way, you're driving your car up the M1 and a warning light illuminates on your dash board do you…

a) Ignore it, it'll soon turn off.

b) Panic, pull over and stop immediately as you're sure the engine will catch fire.

c) Pull over to investigate, and call the mechanic.

I hope you all picked c. This is exactly what you should do if you are training and you start to feel a slight niggle or a twinge. The body is great at letting you know when something is not quite right so listen to it! Don't ignore it and think it'll go away as a lot of the time it may get worse. And don't panic and stop training all together as sometimes keeping active but reducing your activity will help. So the best thing to do is to talk to your trainer or go and see a specialist.

When you change your training habits you put the body under a new demand which the musculoskeletal system has to adapt to, and this takes time. So here are a few ways to help reduce those little aches and pains or to stop that niggle turning into a full blown injury.

1) Stretching – helps to reduce injury through maintaining muscle elasticity, flexibility and mobility.

2) Sports Massage – helps to reduce the risk of injury through reducing musculoskeletal tension, remodelling scar tissue and improving circulation and lymphatic flow to help recovery post exercise and prepare the muscles pre-exercise.

3) Varied training and correct equipment – helps to reduce overuse injuries and prevent unnecessary injury due to faulty equipment or incorrect footwear.

4) Rehabilitation/physiotherapy – If you have tried the above and there is no improvement seeing an injury specialist is your next step. They will be able to assess your condition, give you advice, treatment and exercises to help you to recover and continue with your training.

So, if you don’t remember anything else remember one thing, prevention is always better than cure. Why wait for an injury to develop before you do something about it, try and incorporate steps 1-3 in your training regime today and enjoy your training knowing you are doing what you can to reduce your risk of injury.