How to train safely and not get an injury

Nick500

Found this short article on the net and thought it was useful:

The Safest Rep

By David Studenick

Posted on NaturalStrength.com on June 2, 1999

The Safest Rep
By David Studenick

I am sick to death of so-called "experts" talking about the dangers of training to failure. While bench pressing to failure without a spotter or squatting to failure without a spotter or safety cage most certainly is dangerous, I am referring to these nitwits who claim that training to failure even with a spotter is dangerous. I will prove them wrong using simple logic.

Let's use the bench press as a typical example. Assuming a typical bench presser has a 1-rep maximum of 250 lb and can bench 200 lb for a set of 10. This is a fairly typical assumption, but need not be exact for the purpose of this article. Now let's also assume that our trainee loses 2.5% of his strength with each rep with 200 lb. Again, this is a typical number and may not apply to everybody, but bear with me.

On the first repetition, our trainee is capable of lifting 250 lb, but only has to lift 200 lb. This means that he or she has 50 lb of excess strength. This additional 50 lb excess is why the first rep of that set feels fairly light compared to the tenth rep.

Now what causes muscular injury? The 200 lb weight? Hardly. What causes the injury is this 50 lb of excess force that is available to tear the pectoral, deltoid, or triceps muscle from its attachment.

Returning to our bench press example, with the second rep, our trainee can only generate 44 lb of excess force. Reps three through nine result in an excess force of 38, 32, 26, 20, 15, 9, and 4 pounds respectively, of excess force. On the tenth rep, where our trainee fails, he or she can only generate 199 lb of force hence the weight cannot be moved. If this person cannot even move the weight, then how is there any reserve force available to tear a muscle from its attachment?

Here is the reason most people do get injured when training to failure. It happens when their form breaks down, placing a muscle in a weakened position where injury can then occur. This can happen during any repetition if the trainee is careless with their form. It is the job of a spotter or Personal Trainer to ensure the trainee's form is correct. Stuart McRobert has an excellent book on weight training form entitled The Insiders Tell-All Handbook on Weight-Training Technique. I suggest every trainee who is serious about training injury free get a copy.

What causes injury on the earlier repetitions is ballistic or so called "explosive" lifting where using the 50 lb excess available on the first rep to accelerate the weight as quickly as possible causes the amount of force on the affected joints to be magnified many times as explained in Matt Brzycki's great book, A Practical Approach to Strength Training.

Therefore, to minimize the possibility of injury:

1) Use good form
2) Do NOT train in an explosive or ballistic fashion

Nick

razg

Good post.

Bodyworks

Even this won't ensure anything. believe me. i know.

crazycal1

true but since i`ve been lifting slower-i`ve had nothing more than minor injuries-i dont usually use a full range of movement either

universal11

you can't ensure anything 100%, start from the basic's learn a good form before adding weight, have an work out partner. add weight when you feel comfortable, learn how you train your muscles, thats the key. everyone gains form different excersises, find what best works you you and stick with it.

reef

A good article.

It actually makes lot of sense. Most of the injuries I have acquired in my time training have actually been outside of the gym at work due to trying to lift with fatigued muscles.

Despite the fact that the weights lifted in the gym are heavier, when lifting outside of the gym 'form' is generally much poorer.

At the moment it is a strained tendon in my right wrist and its taking bloody ages to heal. grrr.