Continuous overloading, over weeks, months, years: such a situation is the ideal breeding ground for chronic cases of injury. And since their treatment can turn out to be difficult and protracted, it is probably best to avoid the overloading situation that causes them in the first place.
Acute or chronic? The temporal aspect of an injury
Recognize a muscle rupture? No problem – the acute pain leaves no doubt. The matter becomes more difficult with those injuries that evolve over a long period of time. And at some point you wonder why one shoulder actually hurts more and more during certain movements.
Ongoing overloading brings exhausting effects
If areas of the musculoskeletal system are constantly overloaded over a longer period of time, the result can be such a chronic overload. The affected part of the body has not had sufficient opportunity to repair the minimal injuries resulting from the hard training for a long time. Gradually, these negative effects have accumulated and become a problem that is now increasingly consciously perceived.
Long-term healthy loading of poorly supplied structures
Especially affected by chronic overloading are structures, which are poorly supplied with nutrients due to insufficient blood circulation: Your tendons, ligaments and joints. These structures have a much lower capillarization than the muscles, which makes it more difficult to remove harmful substances as well as to supply the required energy and nutrients. It is therefore a matter of providing the right amount of load to stimulate the blood circulation in these tissues and thus ensure a good supply.
Afraid of something that never comes?
But don’t young people in particular like to assume that this is a “problem” they would probably never have? The temptation to deny one’s own vulnerability in the exuberance of youth is too great. And if you can’t feel anything, then you don’t have to be particularly careful, do you?
Training with heart and brain: Regeneration-based build-up training
Don’t challenge your luck! Train in such a way that your connective tissue also has the chance to keep up with the increase in strength of the neighbouring muscles. For example, by integrating exercises with relatively low weight and relatively high repetition rates into your program. Or by simply giving the areas involved enough rest to recover and build up after heavy loads.
Let’s be honest: What good are perfectly formed muscles if your joints hurt like hell? Or if your tendons and ligaments don’t allow any proper training at all? No question about it: not letting it get this far in the first place seems to be a requirement of rationality.
