The Most Common Causes of Injury: How to Prevent and Manage the Risks

The Most Common Causes of Injury: How to Prevent & Manage the Risks

In our previous blog we introduced the ‘4 Big Rocks’ that commonly cause injury. We hope that by simply being aware of what the major risk factors are you’ve been able to identify some other key contributing factors to your current or previous injuries. If you haven’t read part one then you can check it out below.

Before we provide some simple, yet impactful tips on management and prevention of the ‘Big Rocks’

The Big Rocks of Injury

1.      Energy Availability

2.      Head Space & Life Load

3.      Training Planning & Load Management

4.      Recovery & Sleep

Key recommendations for the above risk factors for injury:

• Plan relative rest days/cross training sessions in your week. Or plan a maintenance week after a 3-4 week period of progressively building training load.

• Monitor your load using simple data and/or biometric data from smart watch

• Seek help from a coach if you are training for a specific event (swimming, running, triathlon, CrossFit, Functional Gym Challenge). Get specific, invaluable knowledge from those who have done it before.

• Know your calorie intake/macro’s and adjust that depending on your training and goals. Identify what fuel is required for your body and the type and amount of training. Dieticians and nutritionists are very useful in this space.

• Eat predominantly whole and homemade food (you then have more of an idea of what’s going in).

• Monitor sleep with biometric data/smart watch and create a predictable AM and PM routine

• Drink plenty of water. It’s usually more than you think you need. https://brisbaneobesityclinic.com.au/water-intake-calculator/

• Warming into and cooling down from more intense activity. Reduces the body being shocked into high intensity efforts.

• Seek support or even professional help when life stress is severe or is sustained (GP/Psychologist/Counselor)

• During periods of higher life stress, pull back on your usual training loads slightly

Injury Stimulus Lag Time

Most injuries we experience have a specific stimulus, or culmination of multiple ‘Big Rock’ injury factors well before noticing symptoms or pain. This stimulus can occur days and sometimes weeks before we notice something is wrong or we sustain an acute injury.

Stimulus —> lag time —> signs and symptoms of injury

Key takeaway:

We tend to blame single factors when things go wrong when it is almost always multifactorial. Work with your health professionals to learn about YOU and know what to look out for. Most people need a plan and especially if you have a lot on your plate and participate in physical activity.

Your physiotherapist can help implement management and prevention strategies for your specific risk factors to injury.

Like anything, injury risk identification and prevention take practice. But, with some education and experience you can develop skills in:

• Knowing what is the difference in a small niggle and the start of a serious injury

• Self-reflection skills on the likely causes of your injury

• Early identification of a system overload for you

• Learn what levers to pull to get back on track and avoid a small symptom leading to a serious injury

We love helping to problem solve people’s injuries, so if you need a hand then just reach out.