Fit to Print Volume 24 Issue 1 March 2015

Daily Apple by Mark Sisson A World of Hurt Is Your Workout Worth the Risk? get injured. How do we limit these injuries? How do we make good choices? What should we watch out for? What shouldn't we ignore? What should we ignore? Trust your gut. Most of my injuries were preceded by a gut feeling that I should stop the workout. It's not always a physical signal, and actual pain isn't necessarily involved. It's a subtle sensation that something is amiss and proceeding would be a poor choice. A lmost everyone I know has a chronic injury of some sort. Maybe it's a lower back that needs extra warming up before a long day, a knee that gets stiff on cold nights, or a tweaked shoulder that prevents good overhead positioning. They're usually not crippling, debilitating, or otherwise serious inﬁrmities, but they are injuries that limit quality of life and performance. And all those people, to a person, got their injuries from training. My understanding is that this is true for most people who exercise regularly. Injuries happen to everyone. I'd wager that most people who step foot into a gym have a nagging injury of some sort. And the research suggests injuries happen quite frequently. And there's really no way around it: engaging in non-essential, extracurricular bouts of physical exertion, also known as working out, carries some risk. Not working out carries its own set of (greater) risks, but that's beside the point. As many a lauded strength coach has said, injuries are a matter of when, not if. And many of these injuries become chronic injuries that stay with you for the rest of your life. But why single out workout injuries when painters are falling from ladders, people are getting into car accidents, and desk jockeys are getting carpal tunnel syndrome? Those are unavoidable. Painters have to work on ladders and software developers have to type to eat. People drive to get to work, pick up their kids, run errands. Accidents will happen. With training injuries, we make our bed and choose to fall out of it. We try for that extra rep when we know we probably shouldn't. We attempt the extra set even though we're completely gassed. We're going to work out. We're going to stay active and move our bodies and challenge our limits, but we don't want to 22 What's odd is that I can't remember an instance where ignoring that feeling turned out well. As far as I can remember, it always ends with a tweak, sprain, pull, twinge, failed rep, or worse. It's never been worth it, and yet I've done it so many times. I bet you have, too. So stop it. Heed those hints we get from our subconscious. Train the deadlift, maintain the squat. That's what human movement expert Gray Cook recommends. Not everyone needs to place a heavy bar on their back, squat down, and stand up. But everyone should be able to squat unassisted and un-weighted. The comfortable squat is a good barometer for being human. Determine why you're doing what you're doing and whether it's worth the risk. That triple set of 20 kipping pull-ups performed at the end of a long stressful work week make a sweet Facebook post. But is it really worth it, or would a few sets of

Fit to Print Volume 24 Issue 1 March 2015 | Page 22