The Four Types of Injuries & How to Avoid Them

by Leigh Sembaluk in Health on January 26th, 2010

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Injuries happen to all sorts of people for all different reasons. They are an unfortunate part of life that cannot be escaped no matter how hard you try. Over the next few weeks I will be writing a series about all aspects of injuries, starting with injury prevention. These principles can be generally applicable to anyone, regardless of activity or fitness level. I would also like to point out that I am not a doctor; I am simply sharing the techniques and lessons I have learned through my injuries and recoveries (of which I have had more than my fair share). There are four main causes of injuries that will be discussed; each can be minimized if addressed properly: lack of fitness, excessive use, improper preparation, and unavoidable incidents.

Improper Preparation

When starting an activity, whether it is your first time or your hundredth time, preparation is crucial. Treat your activities as if you are about to wander across the desert. Fueling up with food and water before you leave is vital if you want to make it over the first sand dune. Additionally, trying to swim through the sand blindfolded, in a parka, may sound fun, but is ultimately not a good idea. If you are going to play hockey with friends, make sure you dress up properly. Wear a helmet, gloves, or perhaps more importantly, a cup. If you are going to the weight room, make sure you know the proper technique to lift weights. If you don’t know, ask the guy with an 8-pack, or the cute girl to help. You will learn something and perhaps even get a date out of it.

Lack of Fitness

It is now important for me to clarify what I mean by lack of fitness. I simply mean that a person is not fit enough to do a certain activity. I consider myself fit yet, if I attempted the Ironman triathlon, I would most certainly end up injured and probably dead (my swimming ability has been compared to that of a drowning rat). If you are not fit enough to do something, work your way up to the activity. If you used to be able to run a marathon, it doesn’t mean that you still can 10 years after college and cheering on the Canucks with your two friends, Molson and Doritos.

Excessive Use

After erasing all traces and memories of your friends Molson and Doritos, you have finally completed a marathon again, injury free! I know you are proud of what you can do, but it is a bad idea to do it day after day. This principle holds true for all activities no matter how harmless and easy they seem. Sitting at a desk, typing may seem easy, but back problems and carpel-tunnel syndrome affect staggering amounts of people. After years of typing, you cannot argue that a person wasn’t fit enough to type or they didn’t prepare properly. While we may like to think of ourselves as high performance goal scoring machines, we do need rest and time off.

Unavoidable Incidents

Unavoidable incidents do not merit much discussion as they are, well, unavoidable. However, the important thing to realize is that fitness, strengthening, and exercise are able to minimize the severity of these unavoidable incidents. The best way to illustrate this is when a quarterback gets blindsided by the opposing team. If the quarterback is a professional athlete , they will receive a more minor injury and recover faster than my brother who may be the same size and age of the professional, but is only active two weeks out of the year.

The important thing to realize is that everyone can minimize their chance of injury if they are smart about how they approach their activity. I have learned many of these lessons the hard way myself. Next week I will further explore injury prevention through training techniques.

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Leigh Sembaluk

Leigh Sembaluk was born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan. He completed a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology at Simon Fraser University. While at SFU Leigh played varsity soccer and has since followed his passion and has gone on to play professionally in North America and continues to coach youth players.

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http://preventable.ca Robert Willis

A very interesting topic Leigh! I like it for two reasons. Firstly, because I’ve made many of the mistakes you advise against. And secondly, because I write a blog myself on a subject of preventable injuries (preventable.ca).

Roughly 1200 British Columbian’s die every year from injuries that could have been prevented. I don’t have numbers that show how many deaths or injuries are caused by sports injuries in B.C., but I can tell you that I’m typing this while I have a hot water bottle on my sore lower back caused by exacerbation of an injuries due to improper stretching before a run. At least I can sit(I spent most of this week standing while working), but I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.

As for injuries being an, “unfortunate part of life that cannot be escaped” I respectfully disagree. I met someone the other day who’s active and hasn’t done so much as sprained a leg. Even if you are a, “quarterback (who) gets blindsided by the opposing team” that player has agency, and he knows that playing a contact sport often means the possibility of injury.

In the end, the debate over what constitutes an injury can end up being a semantic one.

Your four main causes of injuries are helpful not only in reducing injuries while trying to be fit, but could be adapted to prevent people from preventing the incorrect ingesting of medicines, or pedestrians being hit by vehicles (OK, I’m stretching a bit but the “improper preparation”, and “excessive” causes certainly apply.)

Thanks for bring more attention to preventable injuries! I look forward to you next post.