Last Updated Jul 2012
If you are a health
care professional chances are you have worked with patients who have experienced injuries from extreme physical activity such as heavy weight lifting. If you haven’t yet, it’s just a matter of time before you will.
Workout injuries are very common, particularly among men who are serious about their weight training activities. Many of these men often end up in rehabilitation because it is the only way to get back into the activities they love and enjoy performing. However, a better alternative is to prevent rehabilitation all together. How? By taking proper care and precaution when it comes to physical activities.
This is where you come in as a trusted healthcare professional. Your patients look at you as the subject matter expert who understands the human anatomy and physiology and can therefore offer valuable advice that will highly likely be taken seriously.
As a trusted expert advisor, one of the most helpful tips you can give patients who are serious about their weight training to avoid the risk of injury is to truly understand how much weight their bodies can handle. In other words, how much they can lift in the gym.
Sounds like a cheesy advice? It may be when their spouse or friend gives it to them. But when coming from you as a trusted and highly esteemed healthcare professional, the same advice is taken very seriously with wide open ears and hopefully brains as well.
Don’t restrict. Instead, encourage safety.
It is human nature to resent restrictions. Therefore don’t restrict your patients from heavy weight lifting. They are going to do it regardless. Instead, explain the proper way to do it and forewarn against the potential repercussions in the event they don’t. But why is it that your patients might insist on extreme activities to begin with?
From a purely scientific perspective, one must put extreme pressure on the body if they want the body to grow bigger and become stronger, which is exactly what those who lift heavy weights intend to achieve. This is why serious trainers push their bodies to the max at least every couple of weeks.
They understand that in order for their muscles to grow, they must shock them with extreme pressure that sends signals to the brain indicating the need for more fibers and stronger muscle tissue. Unfortunately, this is when most patients hurt themselves, sometimes complaining about a torn rotator cuff, sometimes about their sore neck and at times about their bad back.
Explain human anatomy and physiology adequately.
As the trusted health expert who your patients look up to, it is your responsibility to explain to them that each of us is different, and therefore the weight our bodies can handle is also different. In addition, several variables impact our training intensity such as our diet, rest patterns and the environment in which we train.
For example, working out in Aspen, Colorado is not the same as working out in Chicago, because the oxygen levels in the air are different due to Denver’s elevation above sea level. Differenc
es in the environment definitely impact our conditioning.
By remaining cognizant of attributes that impact their training intensity, your patients can better determine how much weight their bodies can handle in the gym. And to further eliminate any instinctive guessing, you may encourage the use of 1 rep max calculators, which are programs and mobile applications that scientifically calculate how much each of our bodies can handle.
Such programs are based on scientifically tested formulas such as the Epley and Lander formulas, which are the underlying basis for such applications. One such application is the Max Lift iPhone application available on iTunes, which can avail your patient of the convenient and timely use of science.
Leveraging technological advancements to better understand and use science to a healthcare professional's advantage is the preferred method to taking precaution when conducting extreme activities such as heavy weight lifting, and knowing their limits is the best way for serious weight trainers to avoid bodily injuries in the gym.
By Spencer Kardin of Real Cool Apps