Weekend Warrior Syndrome and How to Prevent Injury
- May 26, 2018
- 2 min read
May Day ..... May Day .....
Weather is finally getting warm....people are out on their bikes, jogging, walking, etc... it's so nice to see!
As an orthopedic massage therapist of 30 years (this year) I've have seen this movie over and over - weather gets nice, we overdo and over strain muscles. The sun is a huge solar power propelling us to keep moving - I get it!
This is a reminder to have a conversation with ourselves before we get out there to "warm up". Warming is different then stretching - warming is just that - bringing blood flow to the muscles to warm the soft tissue. By warming the muscles your lengthening and creating more flexibility, thereby ease of movement.
Not sure if you have this childhood memory, if not, imagine if you will - a piece of toffee in your hands, when it is cold it is tough to bend and has the potential to break, but if you warm and move it in your hands it becomes bendy and flexible. Moving passively, like jogging in place, moving your arms side to side, rushes blood around, warming tissue and making us more flexible; thereby, reducing your risk of injury.
Another key to reducing risk, is to slowly work up to what you think you should be doing and stopping before your body tells you to stop. This takes having a conversation with yourself, establishing some boundaries, so you are not overrun by your impulses, some call this your "voice of reason".
This brings us to stretching, which is really best after you exercise. Your stretches will be that much better, be sure to couple it with your breathing. Just be aware not to over stretch, here's why; ligaments and tendons are tightly woven soft tissue with a mission to hold us in place. Ligaments hold bone to bone, they keep our skeletal selves intact, so we don't fall to pieces. Tendons are muscle endings that hold onto bone keeping our musculature intact. If we overstrain these tightly woven fibers we've then created micro tears.
Our body, in it's ever present wisdom, will repair this tissue with a type of spackling. A compound that will attempt to fill in the gaps, unfortunately, this compound is not structurally sound and has the potential to re-tear thus, creating a chronic problem. The chronic problem will resurface any time you overstrain, sound familiar, hope not.
A couple things you can do to help yourself is to take an Epsom salt bath in tepid/warm (not hot) water. Epsom salt has magnesium in it that helps to soften tight tissue, if you're not able to do that. You can also try Calm, which is a magnesium product that also softens tight tissue. The next thing to do is to, call your nearest orthopedic massage therapist, they know how to repair that tissue through tissue manipulation and exercises to further the integrity of the affected tissue.
Have fun this summer enjoy the warmth and remember to warm up your muscles before you exercise!
Cheers to your wellness,
Michelle
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