These three simple words can help us understand why most injuries happen.
Demand Versus Capability
When the demand we place on the various tissues of our bodies exceeds their capabilities, pain and injury are the likely outcome.
Jump from the top of a ladder to the ground and there’s a very real chance of breaking a bone. The force produced from the jump exceeds the bone’s ability to withstand it and injury ensues.
Try hard enough to lift a weight in the gym that’s too heavy for you and your muscles will strain or tear.
The implication of Demand Versus Capability is that to reduce our chances of getting injured, we can reduce the demands we put on our bodies or increase our capability to withstand those demands.
Reducing Demand
A common excessive demand for many of us is staying in one position for too long. Bodies like to move but modern life often requires us to be sat in front of a screen for long periods of time. To reduce the demand on the body caused by sitting we simply need to get up and move around more regularly.
If you have taken up running and are experiencing knee pain, you might want to consider running fewer miles, at a slower speed or on a flatter terrain.
Increasing Capability
Whilst reducing demand has its place, increasing your capabilities is a more enriching way to minimise your chances of injury. To improve your capabilities you need to stress your body’s tissues ENOUGH but NOT TOO MUCH.
For example, our weightlifter should lift weights that are challenging but not excessive. In doing so, her muscles will adapt to the demands of the weights she has lifted by getting a little stronger, enabling her to lift a little bit more in the future. Our runner should start at a comfortable pace and distance and incrementally increase both over time. His cardiovascular fitness will creep up and his musculoskeletal system will have time to adapt to the demands.
And it is not just for sports people, if you love gardening but it gives you back ache, think about ways of initially reducing the demands it places on your body. Get help with bigger jobs, rotate tasks so you get variety of movements and reduce your total time gardening. Slowly build up the duration, again, giving your body time to adapt to what you are asking it to do. Supplemental stretching and strength exercises may also be beneficial.
Prevention is better (and less painful) than cure, don’t wait for injuries to happen, start increasing your capabilities today.