Weight Lifting Programs Can Cause Injury - How To Stay Safe, Avoid Injury And Have Fun

When starting one of the many popular weight lifting programs, it is important to stay safe and within your fitness level to avoid injury. Getting injured is not only painful, but it can be very discouraging to beginners and a major setback in reaching your fitness goals.

Here are some tips to stay safe in the gym and be injury free:

Drink Water

You should always have a water bottle with you when working out. Make sure to sip water frequently during your workouts, not just at the end. This will keep your body hydrated and keep you cool while exercising. Lack of water during exercise can lead to muscle cramping and dizziness. In addition to drinking water while working out, you should get in the habit of drinking water regularly throughout the day to stay hydrated.

Technique Is Key

Most injuries in the gym are the result of using exercise machines wrong or by performing exercises with improper technique. If you are unsure how to use a piece of equipment, ask a trainer or someone else who works at your gym. They should be more than happy to show you how to properly adjust and use the equipment to avoid injury. If you are doing an exercise for the first time, have someone watch you. They can point out any flaws in your technique that you may be unaware of.

Use A Spotter

If you are doing any exercises with free weights such as squats or bench press make sure to use a spotter. A spotter will not only make sure that you stay safe when performing these exercises, they will also offer you encouragement and help motivate you when doing those last few hard reps.

Warm Up & Cool Down

Always make sure you properly warm up and cool down before and after exercising. This will go a long way to preventing injury. Pulled muscles are not fun and can be easily avoided by properly warming up before starting any exercise routine. After exercising it is always a good idea to lightly stretch. Your muscles will thank you the next day!

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Overtraining: The Most Common Cause for Hitting a Plateau

Over-training is one of the most common causes of hitting a plateau in your bodybuilding program. If you are not making progress from your bodybuilding workouts, the first thing you need to determine is if you are over-trained or not.? Now, how do you know if you are over-trained?

If you notice that your energy levels are very low. you lack motivation to go to the gym, your pulse in the morning when you wake up is higher than normal, your muscles constantly ache, you are not recovering, your strength is going down at the gym, and your immunity is low, chances are that you are over-trained.?

If you are over-training, the solution?is to simply take a couple of days off to allow the body to completely rejuvenate itself and then ease back into training. This works amazingly well.? Also, by using a periodized bodybuilding workout?as well as following the right bodybuilding diet you minimize your chances of ever getting over-trained again.? Always remember the need to periodize your training because if you choose to do high volume workouts all of the time, eventualy your body will reach the point that it can no longer recover.? That is why periodization varies the training by alternating weeks of high volume workouts with weeks of higher intensity/heavier work.?

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