We all love the training piece that comes from strength and conditioning, but hate to do the boring work it takes to stay injury free. I have worked hard to figure out some ways to incorporate these practices into everyones training without making it seem super tedious and boring. Here are some things that should be included in a well rounded program.
1-Glute isometrics and strengthening-
The glute muscles are the largest muscles in the body and they primarily serve to extend and rotate the hip. These are some of the motions we use for most of the stuff in the gym (squats, deadlifts, lunges, etc…). We want to make sure these muscles are activated and strong. A well rounded program should include some muscle activation prior to working out and possibly some strengthening during or after. Some good exercises are
1-Glute bridges with a band
2-Clamshells
3-monster walks
4-glute circles
5-1 leg rdls
6-banded hip extensions
7-bodyweight power lunges
We can also use these exercises to strengthen the glute muscles. Glute bridges with a barbell is probably the easiest way to strengthen these muscles. Check out my Glute Warmup-
2-Core isometrics
Weightlifting requires proper bracing of the core muscles. You must stabilize in order to prevent knee and back injuries. I believe this has helped a lot of my athletes avoid the common back injuries we see with weightlifting and sports in general. I like to include some of these isometric stabilization exercises in my warmups as well as workouts. Here are some good exercises for this.
1-Side planks
2-Weighted planks
3-Suitcase carry
4-Turkish Get ups
5-DB oh walks
6-ring planks
7-V-ups
I like side planks and DB OH walks for warmups as these get a lot of bang for your buck.
Add some progressions such as weighted planks or band rows to strengthen the core muscles.
3-Shoulder strengthening
No I am not talking about strengthening your chest and deltoids, we do plenty of that already. I’m thinking about strengthing the small muscles of the rotator cuff, the lower traps, rhomboids, teres major, and serratus. These are muscles that get neglected a lot in training. These exercises are especially important if you are “a desk jockey” and present rounded shoulders or a forward head posture. Activate the shoulder and strengthen these muscles during or after training. Some things I like to do:
1-Banded snow angels
2-Banded Y-trap raise
3-Scaption
4-Foam roller Y press
5-rotator cuff 90/90
6-bottoms up KB press
7-Yoga push ups
4-Soft tissue work
Tight muscles can limit and hinder your full potential causing compensation patterns. These compensations patterns can lead to injury to yourjoints. By soft tissue work that can mean lacrosse ball deep tissue smash and foam roller smashing. Everyone should have a base knowledge of how to do this effectively to self treat their bodies. We know how expensive trips to the masseuse can be, knowing this can save you time and money. If your lats feel super tight and it limits your overhead capabilities you can stick a lacross ball in there and this helps loosen up these tight muscles. As Kelly Starrett says “Out with the garbage and in with the groceries”. What that means is your muscles get gnarly and nasty from using them while training. We need to get some new blood flow to that area to allow new nutrients in to repair and restore. A good example of this our barbells we use need to spin. Once we use them a lot and spray them down to sanitize after, they get dirty and stuck, they dont spin well. You have to get some new oil to the bar sleeve to allow them to work properly again. This is also why active recovery and muscle stim work so well. I encourage you to get a baseline knowledge of how to self administer soft tissue work. Here are a few of my favorite spots to hit:
5-Active Recovery Days-
We should think about 2 days of recovery in which training gets put on the back burner and we focus on recovery. I like to think about 3 things on these days :
1-Get moving-“Motion is lotion” we want to try and help our muscles recover by getting blood flow to the damaged area without creating additional muscle damage. Running, rowing, light squatting are all great options for this. Sitting on the couch all day will cause even more muscle tightness.
2-Mobility circuits or LLLD-Mobility circuits are great because it may help loosen up some tight and stiff joints you have while also getting some blood flow to these areas. LLLD is “low load long duration stretches”, I like this for increasing range of motion and also to slow things down for the week. These are both great options, find something you like and do it.
3-Work different muscles-Doing a lot of deadlifting, squatting, running, and pressing? Try and mix up some different muscle groups to prevent from overloading the same muscles. Lateral lunges, bulgarian split squats, eccentric chin ups, and turkish get ups are all great options to try and mix it up a bit.
Injury prevention is a life long pursuit to stay healthy. Try and find some things you can incorporate into your training and do them consistently.
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