Injury Avoidance

I feel spectacularly under-qualified to talk about this subject. I have never been injured. (Yes, I’m touching wood as I write this.) Nor have I ever really done much to prevent injury, apart from making sure that I increase my mileage gradually.

But today the gym was really quiet so I thought I would take the opportunity to do some of my floor work, after a successful HIIT session on the treadmill (sprint four minutes, walk four minutes, then repeat). Normally, I am too self-conscious when it comes to this stuff – I’m not quite sure why!

I started by doing squats on the balancing plate (pictured above). This was recommended to me by a physiotherapist years ago. It helps to strengthen the knees as they have to work harder to stabilise you than they would on a normal squat. My right knee has always been especially weak and I have to take care of them both.

I also did a simple exercise in-between which basically just involves getting up on tip-toes several times. (You’d be amazed how much it starts to feel like a real exercise by the twelfth time.)

Moving on, I actually did some foam rolling. The gym has quite a soft foam roller so I was able to do the one-leg-over-the-other approach, which normally hurts too much.

I topped it off with some classic hamstring stretches and everyone’s favourite from PE back in the day- touching your toes.

It’s not a perfect routine, but it’s a step in the right direction.