The 10 Commandments for Avoiding Injury In The Weight Room

Injuries are the bodybuilder’s worst enemy. Once you get injured, not only will that cause you pain and discomfort, but it could potentially take you out of the gym for a few days, or at the very least, impair your ability to perform certain exercises. All of these things lead to diminished results from your bodybuilding program. On top of that, once injuries happen, it is very easy to get re-injured again on the same area. Because of that, it is of crucial importance that bodybuilders avoid injuries at all cost. While the tips below may seem very simple and basic, even the most advanced of us tend to forget a few of these at one time or the other and that is when trouble can happen. Having said that, below you will find the 10 commandments for avoiding injury:

#1. Wear appropriate workout clothing
Wear clothing that allows you to move all your body parts in a full range of motion. Restrictive clothing, like jeans for instance, would prevent you from performing an exercise such as the squats correctly and thus can lead to loss of balance and/or injury. Make sure that you also wear comfortable athletic shoes and always ensure they are tied.

#2. When in doubt, ask for help
If you don't know how to perform an exercise or use a particular piece of equipment, please do not attempt to figure it out on your own. Either ask a trainer or knowledgeable gym member to help you or get an informative book to teach you correct exercise form.

#3. Ensure that before you execute a lift, all of the weight plates are properly secured.
Be extremely careful with not securing the weights with collars in an Olympic Bars. There have been so many times situations where a person is executing an exercise and the weights on one side slide, fall off, and thus cause a total imbalance where the trainee ends up dropping the other side. This cannot only hurt you but can hurt others around you. Therefore, please secure your weights.

#4. Warm up before you move on to heavier weights.
I remember when I was a teenager and would start doing 225lbs on the bench press without a warm up. That was a bad idea. Now that I am older and hopefully wiser, I do a couple of lighter sets prior to using my working weight. So for instance, if I am going to do a squat with 450 pounds for 6-8 reps, I start warming up with 200lbs for 8-10, 350lbs for 8-10 and then 450 for 6-8.

#5. Practice perfect form.
Leave the ego aside and practice perfect form. Use a weight that you can control. When you use heavier weights than what you can handle, your joints and bones are the ones that will take most of the stress; not the muscles. In addition, chances are that your form will be sacrificed. Bad form combined with heavy weights equals an injury waiting to happen. Stress the muscles, not the joints, and practice perfect exercise execution. Doing so will not only allow you to achieve faster results due to the fact that the muscles are the ones doing most of the work, but also will prevent you from incurring into any injuries. Besides, we are practicing bodybuilding, not powerlifting so stop obsessing over weight used. As time goes by you will get progressively stronger; I promise.