Do you need to stretch more ? Take a quick test at Racquets

I have been talking to many people in the past couple of months who have been resting from exercise because of an injury.

The injury was very often sustained during exercise !   You have to do the exercise so you need to learn how to cope with these niggly injuries, how to prevent them and how to get back to exercise as fast as possible.

So, is rest the best option ?

There are many schools of thought on this.  We believe that many rest because they don’t want to make the injury worse – but resting for weeks is really not the answer.

Yes, rest for a short period but as soon as possible you need to get back to some form of reparative exercise and stretching.

We suggest that you come back to the club and discuss your injury with one of our gym instructors.  They can advise the sort of exercise or stretching that will be beneficial and help you decide if your injury would benefit from a sports massage.

The most important activity that you need to do right now …. when you don’t have any injury …. is to test whether your body is really ready for exercise.

In the gym are some foam rollers.  By ‘rolling’ your calf muscles, your quads, and your IT band you can quickly identify if you have tight muscles in your legs which are likely to go into spasm if they are exercised.   It’s a very simple test, roll… and if there is any sensation or pain then you need to sort that out before you take part in any serious exercise.

Prevention is always better than cure – so get in your gym and ask to be shown the foam rollers and find out if your leg muscles are primed for an injury or if you can be safe in the knowledge that your muscles are in peak condition so you can ‘go for it’.