Avoid Overuse Injuries With a Well-Balanced Program
Imagine starting a new training program with high motivation and pure determination. After a few workouts, you find yourself injured.
Recently, an old client reached out to me with this exact problem. After completing a few intense workouts, his forearm was throbbing in pain, and he could barely bend his arm.
After asking him a few questions, the culprit was clear: his workouts were full of heavy pull movements, which overworked his grip. Individually, they were excellent exercises. Collectively, they placed an unbalanced load on his forearms, leading to a painful overuse injury.
This is a reminder that more isn't always better. When a program lacks balance, smaller stabilizing muscles (e.g., forearms, shoulders, or calves) take a hit.
In this case, I made a few recommendations, including using straps to alleviate some of the tension from the forearm when gripping. Swapping exercises or splitting the workout into two different days would also be great options.
Here are a few things to consider in order to keep a well-balanced training program:
Train all body parts once or twice a week. Any more can lead to too much stress unless you have adapted to that level of volume.
If you are supersetting exercises (i.e., performing two different exercises back-to-back with little to no rest in between), target opposing muscles instead of the same muscle in each exercise.
Maintain a similar amount of sets for your upper body push and upper body pull movements. The same goes for your lower body push and lower body pull movements.
If you are performing heavy lifts (about 1-6 reps), keep it to one or two exercises per workout, unless you are well adapted to that level of stress.
Give yourself enough rest days so your body has enough time to rebuild to a stronger version of itself.
A great workout program should work you hard, but it should also protect your body from injury. Look over your routine this week and make sure it has the balance you need to stay injury-free. If you ever need any help with this, I would be happy to give you feedback!
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