Weight Lifting Safety Rules
Weight training is safe, and you can go your life without a minor injury, but even so, you may feel occasional muscle soreness—especially if you’re new to the game or haven’t exercised in a while.
A little post-workout soreness is fine. You are likely to feel tightness or pain 24 to 48 hours after exercise, not immediately. (This delayed period is called delayed muscle soreness.) But there are ways to reduce the amount of discomfort you feel so you can be a normal, functioning human being after your workout. The following guidelines can help you keep this pain to a minimum.
Warm up properly before lifting
Before you begin your training session, warm up with at least five minutes of easy aerobic exercise. Walking, jogging, climbing stairs, and stationary cycling are warm sports activities to warm up the muscles south of your waistline. But to prepare your upper body muscles, you need to add additional arm movements for these activities:
>>>> Swing your arms vigorously while walking, jogging, or using a ladder climber.
>>>> When riding a stationary bike, gently roll your shoulders, loop around your arms, and reach the middle of your body.
>>>> Use a cardio machine that exercises your whole body, such as a rowing machine, cross-country ski machine, or ladder machine. (Many gyms have a Cybex upper body ergometer [UBE]; ask your trainer where you can find a UBE.)
Warming up increases circulation and the temperature of your working muscles, making them more flexible and less prone to injury. Warming up also lubricates your joints. The pumping action of the joints stimulates the release of synovial fluid, which washes your joints and keeps them moving smoothly, as if you were lubricating a mechanical joint. If you’re planning a particularly heavy weight workout, warm up for ten minutes.
You can also warm up your muscles with active isolated stretching (AI) exercises. AI stretching involves stretching the muscle opposite the muscle you plan to stretch and then stretching the target muscle for two seconds. Repeat this process 8 to 12 times before moving on to the next stretch.
Warm up with light weights
If you plan to perform more than one set of exercise, start with eight to ten repetitions of a light weight. A warm-up group is like a real dress rehearsal – a way to remind your muscles to hit their marks when you go live. Even bodybuilders do warm-up sets.
If you become too confident and head straight for heavy weights, you risk injuring yourself. With weights too heavy for you, you’re playing with some risky behaviors:
>>>> Weight loss control
>>>> Throw the burden on yourself or someone else
>>>> Too hard to lift the weight that leads to muscle tears
>>>> You end up in so much pain that you can barely lift your feet high enough to climb stairs
One or a combination of these accidents can cause your exercise to stop because you may have to take time off to recover. Be smart and start with lighter weights – weights you can lift for more repetitions before you get tired. A personal trainer at the gym can help you determine the starting weight for your repetition.
Lifting weights too fast does not effectively challenge the muscles and is a very reliable way to injure yourself. Pushing, pushing, lifting or stretching at greyhound speed, you can’t stop medium repetitions if the weight plates break off, you’re positioned incorrectly, or something isn’t right. Therefore, take at least two seconds to raise the weight and two to four seconds to lower it.
using your breath
Breathing is often the most overlooked and least understood component of weight training. If you’re a competitive lifter, you probably already know that your breathing can make or break competition time.
Relaxing breathing while exercising is the best approach. Don’t hold your breath either.
Lifting weights temporarily raises blood pressure, which is usually not a problem. But when you hold your breath, your blood pressure rises even more — and then suddenly collapses. Holding your breath causes pressure inside the chest (pressure in the chest cavity) that stops blood circulation from your muscles but can increase blood pressure.
When you relax, the muscles relax, blood begins to flow again, and blood pressure drops. This sharp drop may cause you to faint and lose weight. And if you have a heart condition, you may be at serious risk. So remember: breathe!
Using the appropriate form
Even subtle formal errors, such as holding your back or straightening your wrist the wrong way, can lead to injury.
The main goal is to adjust your body so that you don’t put undue stress on your joints or muscles when you’re moving. It is important to understand that form is everything in weightlifting. Bad form eventually leads to injuries.
Before you start building muscle, you need to establish the correct form and balance – especially before you add any more weight. When you start using heavy weight, poor form eventually leads to muscle and joint injuries.
Don’t get discouraged because modifying your form is something all weightlifters should do. If you start poorly, you continue in this shape forward, until you discover the hard way you were moving incorrectly. Hard to break old habits!
>>> Do not shake or bounce any weight.
>>> Don’t be afraid to ask for help while you’re at the gym.
>>> Ask the gym staff for help if you are having trouble with certain exercises. They are usually helpful and will answer any questions you have – if they aren’t, you may want to look into a different gym.
>> Follow this beginner weightlifting routine consistently for 2-3 months before moving on to more challenging exercises. Be patient, it will eventually start to pile up on the weight plates; But for now, think about form and balance.
You have to train your neuromuscular system before you can start increasing muscle strength and size. In other words, you need to improve the communication between your brain and body so that more muscle fibers are released with each contraction. The process of developing muscle control takes time.
cooling down
If you’ve done a fairly fast weight-bearing exercise, complete the workout with five minutes of slow cardio. Calming the heart gives a chance to slow your heartbeat, blood pressure, and breathing before you shower.
If you are lifting weights at a lumbering pace, with plenty of rest between sets, a few minutes of stretching will be enough to cool down. Finishing your workout with an easy set also helps you relax.
Relax your muscles
You can lift weights on consecutive days – just don’t exercise the same muscles two days in a row. Usually 48 hours is the ideal waiting period before exercising the same muscle group again. Lifting weights puts stress on the muscles, causing the body to adjust to the new pressure, which in turn makes your muscles stronger.
If you ignore the 48-hour rule, lifting weights may make you weaker, not stronger. At the very least, your muscles may feel too tired to perform at peak running levels.