Ask the Expert Archive Week 13
Too Much Exercise
Thinking of starting an exercise program? Are you determined to get fit? The no-pain, no-gain mantra can be dangerous for adults and children, according to physiotherapist Kelly Smith.
In our practice we are continuing to see people jumping into fitness with great gusto, which is really fantastic. However too much enthusiasm is not always a good thing. We are always seeing sports injuries here in the clinic which are due to overuse which is doing too much, too fast, too soon. And these injuries are occurring in both children and adults. In this day and age, kids are training as hard as, or even harder than adults, and they are developing similar injuries. Where the problem is that these kids have open growth plates and growing muscles and that really predisposes them to certain injuries and I think that parents need to be aware of these when they are enrolling kids in these long sports programs. Basically our message is to balance their program, to cross-train, and jog one day and then bike the next.
If you are in the gym and working with weights then you should balance you training, and if you are working with a personal trainer, make sure that they are well qualified there are a lot of individuals out there that call themselves a personal trainer with only a one or a two day course. And then if you happen to experience pain in your workout, rest the area for a couple of days, apply ice several times a day for 10 or 15 minutes and then if that pain has not resolved in a couple of days then seek advice from your physiotherapist or physician because once an injury becomes chronic then it takes a lot longer to heal and it is much more difficult to deal with. If you would like to send a question to Ask the Expert you can either email us at rx@tvo.org or fill out our form.
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