Hello from GM HQ!
It’s a sunny Thursday and for those of you who follow me on Instagram (@thegymmedic), you’ll know that today my gym session was ALL about PRE-HAB.
Following my ankle injury about a month ago, I’ve been trying to incorporate PRE-HAB into each of my sessions. If I’m honest I only heard about it a couple of weeks ago. So for those of you, like me, who are new to it I thought I’d explain what this PRE-HAB really is & what can it do for you!!
🔹What? A way of preventing injury and pain! Basically ‘Strength & Conditioning‘.
🔹Aim? Stabilise joints through improving strength, flexibility & proprioception (simply put this is improving unconscious perception of movement and learning where your body is in space).
🔹 Why? Those of you who regularly hit the gym or play sport might neglect the ‘conditioning’ component of your work out. If this is the case, then you may be putting yourself at higher risk of injury. No one wants an injury, it often can halt your progress physically and mentally it can be really difficult especially if it means you have to step out of sport completely which I had to for a couple of weeks following my injury. It was SO hard, I felt like a salty fish and was really sad 😦 Studies have shown that PRE-HAB can reduce the incidence of exercise induced injury and with this I am SOLD. Anything to help prevent me being out of the gym again soon!
🔹 How? So what does this mean for you? If you can have a session with a PT in your club to assess your balance, posture and muscle strength that is optimal as they can help you put together a Pre-Hab plan to target your problem areas and get that bod balanced out!
If not. DO NOT FEAR! The principle of PRE-HAB is STABILITY. So start with your CORE. A stable core can improve the transfer of energy up your kinetic chain (muscles from head to toe) and aid efficient and predictable energy transfer. This in itself can reduce injury incidence. Mostly I do compound exercises to incorporate core, rather than specific core exercises such as crunches, just because it works for me! So…..
🔹ONTO the fun bit, THE EXERCISES:
–> Yoga Ball Plank: Hold for 30s and repeat 3x. (You can put the yoga ball on the vibro. plate to make it harder & remember to keep your back flat and bottom downn not waving in the air).
–> Superman: On all fours lift your left arm straight out in front of you slowly and hold for 30s. If you can lift the right leg at the same time, straight out behind you. Repeat with the other arm and leg. Repeat 3 times.
–> Slow Mountain Climbers: Get back in plank position. Single knee to chest and rotate your hip away from the midline whilst keeping knee bent. 10sec each side. Repeat 5x per side.
So these are a few of my top tips for general CORE PRE-HAB, but don’t hesitate to comment below if you have any specific problem areas which you’d like to target and I’ll do my best to give you some suggestions!
Over & Out
Dr. B aka. THE GYM MEDIC.
Remember to enter your email for more updates from GMHQ and notifications of new blog posts!
Catch me on Instagram and Snapchat @thegymmedic & Twitter The_Gym_Medic.
thegymmedic.com 