When lifting healthy joints should be of utmost importance. As most lifters will know from experience, joint pain is usually the first sign of an injury or a warning for one. It is important to start training to avoid these injuries rather than repairing the injury.
Below are four of the main causes and remedies to joint pain.
Too much weight
This is often the culprit. If you feel pain in your joints and dropping the weight by 20-30% fixes it that’s probably the best approach
Muscular Imbalances
When one side of your body is stronger than the other more of the load will end up on that side. The muscle can usually sustain this increased load as it is stronger, but the tendons are rarely able to keep up. If you are aware of muscle imbalances it can be a good idea to switch to dumbbells from barbells. It is also important to improve the activation of the underactive muscle. Here the Pulse Device can be a massive assistance at retraining the underactive muscle
Gaining Muscle too fast
If you have been gaining muscle at a fast rate and your lifts have been increasing alongside it, it is important to understand that tendons don’t develop as fast. Different ranges of exercises can help the tendons more.
- Focus on the negatives (go slowly in the opposite direction of the contraction)
- Isometric Exercises like wall sits or bear crawls can be great at building knee strength
Lack of Proper Muscle Activation
If you don’t feel the workouts in the right places, chances are the load is going to other muscles or joints. This can lead to imbalances and eventually injury. To remedy this, you should ensure that you are using correct form and for additional assistance use the Pulse Device. The Pulse Device can be instrumental at increasing activation of the target muscle and reducing the activation of any other muscles as well as joints.
