Brani’s injury prevention formula

Hi,

that headline sounds like I’ve created some secret tool. No, I have not, not yet at least ;)

Why and how do injuries happen?

1 - accident
2 - you’re pushing your body past what it can handle right now. This is a classic “How come my knee hurts after a 5km run? I’m fit and I can do much more.” Let me ask you - When did you run last time? When did your knees last time have to handle 5000 small impacts?
3 - random but not so random. These are those random niggles that pop up out of nowhere. Seemingly random but sometimes looking back you can see it was just an accumulation of small things. Like hurting your back by standing up from the sofa is probably an accumulation of sitting in a bad posture that’s compressing the spine in a certain way the spine doesn’t like it. Then standing up or bending over seems like a thing that did it, but in reality, it was building up over time.

Injuries are annoying, and frustrating and can have a really debilitating effect. I’ve had a fair share of them in my life.

Let me be very honest with you. I’m one of those people who tend to injure themselves quite often. 

How is that possible?

Sometimes it’s the sacrifice I make to live a life I want to live.
Sometimes is just being reckless, ha-ha! (Paulina would say it’s definitely the latter)

I live a very active lifestyle. I play ice hockey, work out, hike, run, cycle, swim…and I love it!

When you play hard, injuries happen. High reward = high risk. Some injuries can be prevented, and some completely eliminated. But eventually, some will happen even when you’ve done everything you could.

We’re not here just to talk about myself. I want to share with you my formula and what helps me to work through, around, and prevent injuries.

1. Mindset

Mindset is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it helps to work through injuries much quicker because you’re always looking on the bright side. But on the other side, it can be destructive as you can stop paying attention to niggles or small injuries that can lead to bigger ones. 

My mindset is strong! I’ve dealt with injuries since I was a young competitive athlete, and they just became a part of my life. I believe if you’re not used to them, they can be super frustrating, but having a growth and positive mindset means that no matter what injury you get (you’ll eventually get some), you can work through and around it. And it won’t stop you in your journey.

2. Strength training and having a good amount of muscle mass

Life is just so much better with muscles. Sounds funny? I mean it! Having strength and muscle not only gives you the ability to do cool things and live an interesting life full of experiences. It also allows you to recover quicker because your muscles are like protective armour for your body. A strong core will protect your lower back. Strong quads and hamstrings will protect your knees. A strong upper back will protect your shoulders…you get the point.

3. Mobility

Mobility vs. Stretching. Mobility is the ability to actively move through a range of motion while stretching involves deliberately lengthening a muscle. Meaning that you can touch your toes without someone pushing you down. When our bodies lack mobility in certain areas, they’ll always try to make it up elsewhere. For example, when your hips are tight from sitting down too much, your lower back will take up the slack when you trying to move in the gym or outside in life and eventually it’ll get hurt because it is not designed to take on so much strain.

At the bottom of this email is a mobility session you can start doing daily and feel your body moving so much better having less aches and pains.

4. Take a step back but don’t stop.

When I get injured, the first thing that crosses my mind is: “What else can I do instead?”. Let’s take the example of lower back pain. You’ve injured your back and it’s annoying and painful in movements. You cannot back squat, deadlift or do sit-ups. Step 1 - to do here is to identify which movements hurt, take a break from those for a few weeks and then reintroduce them slowly. Step 2 - figure out which positions/movements don’t hurt and how you can adjust the exercises to suit you. For example, instead of doing bend-over barbell rows do chest-supported dumbbell rows. Instead of doing a back squat do a rear foot elevated split squat. Step 3 - Keep working around your injury. You’ll feel better mentally and possibly even recover quicker physically too.

Reflecting back to my last year I dealt with some injuries. I’m grateful to be putting the 4 above in practice because without them I would miss some of the amazing experiences and memories I collected last year.

Surfing in Nicaragua.
Open water swimming in the cold lakes of Snowdonia.
Road cycling in the English countryside.
Ice hockey love forever.
Triathlon, because every now and then we all need a challenge.

Live strong, live fully,
Coach Brani.

Workout of the day:

Feel good - move well

As promised today’s workout of the day is going to be a MOBILITY routine that you can do at home and doesn’t take you an hour of your time. Focus is on all major joints in your body, mobilise and stretch them allowing you to move freely and prevent any aches or pains. I recommend doing this 2-3x a week in addition to your strength training.

Mobility routine:
10x cat-cow
10x kneeling thoracic rotation on each side
10x kneeling scapular push-up
30-sec deep squat groin stretch
20x 90/90 hip switch
10x prone snow angels
10x cossack squat (5 per side as deep as possible)
30-sec side lying thoracic twist stretch on each side
10x lying pelvic tilt
20x alternating lying leg raise