How to Prevent Injuries
Injuries are the biggest enemy of every bodybuilder, because they can have a very negative effect on the quality and the results of your workouts, or even stop you completely from training a specific muscle group for a limited or a prolonged period of time. Unfortunately, some types of injuries do never heal completely, and will hamper your workouts for the rest of your life. Therefore, preventing injuries is of primordial importance if you want to become a successful bodybuilder in the long term.
Lower back lessons
Some lower back injuries, especially spinal disc herniations, are extremely serious because they can cause a very debilitating pain that can become chronic, and in bad cases they can cause a permanent damage of a nerve root, resulting in partial or total paralysis of some muscles in your lower body. Although spinal disc herniations can be prevented rather easily, they occur quite frequently because most people use their back incorrectly.
Most people, including bodybuilders, use their back incorrectly because they don't know how to do it right, or because they underestimate the risks they take. It is a misunderstanding to think that having big and strong muscles in the back area will prevent you from getting a spinal disc herniation. No matter how strong or muscular you are, if you lift heavy weights the wrong way, you run a very big risk of getting one of your spinal discs damaged sooner or later.
Spinal disc herniations, however, are certainly not only caused by incorrect lifting of heavy weights. They can as well occur as the result of long term faulty use of your back during very simple, everyday activities such as sitting, sleeping, picking up something from the floor, or lifting light objects.
The main aspect in preventing spinal disc damage is to keep your back, especially the lower part, always in a naturally straight position during standing, sitting, lying, and especially during lifting or picking up objects. Whenever you lift an object or pick something up from the floor, you should make a squatting movement and keep your back straight all the time. Keep your back straight throughout the movement and only bend at your knees and hips. Do never bend forward at the waist with your knees straight, as this puts extreme tension on your spinal discs, even if you don't lift any object at all.
If you don't perform you repetitions in a controlled way, and let the weight bounce at the bottom of your reps, or allow an overextension of your joints, you will very likely sooner or later be suffering from joint or cartilage damage. Usually the damage is the results of long term incorrect use of your joints. However, it may also be the result of one very wrong movement, especially when you make uncontrolled, jerking movements with very heavy weights. Damaged joints or cartilage usually results in unstable and painful joints, especially during exercise. The damaged tissue can cause a local inflammation and water accumulation within the joint. Joint or cartilage damage is usually permanent.