Regular excercise is healthy, there’s no doubt about it, but does that mean all exercise is always healthy? Nope. In fact, some activities that have been hailed as physical elixers for your poor, damaged muscles can hurt just as easily as they can heal.
Gentle, rejuvenating exercises that have been touted as ”good” for the body are easy to buy into; after all, people in all sorts of age groups have reaped the rewards, proving how effective and healthy the activity is. But there are hidden dangers in some common low-intensity exercises that could leave you permanently injured, paralyzed or on the surgical table. Find out how and why these three activites could be a bigger threat to your health than you would imagine.
Golf. Long stretches of green course to walk and natural swinging movements to gently work the whole body make golf a fantastic exercise for anyone, especially older people who have no interest in body-taxing, high-intensity workouts. But while a game of golf can be a great way to fit a lot of steady activity into your day, it can also leave you in agony if you’re not careful.
Repetitive stress injuries are more common in golfers than you may think; the swinging motion, which a golfer can repeat a hundred times in the course of a game, is twisting and testing the same muscles over and over again. Also, it’s completely one-sided, which leaves one whole side of your body under-used while the other is stressed. The most common types of repetitive stress injuries are tendinitis and bursitis, and they mainly occur in the elbow, hip and knee. If you want to keep golfing comfortably, a regular strength training routine that involves complementary muscles — and both sides of the body — will serve you well.
Yoga. Many people make yoga a regular part of their weekly routine, while more turn to the age-old practice for help with recovery. What you might not realize is that hundreds of others are taken to the hospital each year after a mishap in the yoga studio, and those aren’t newbies. In fact, some yoga instructors have succumbed to debilitating injuries, partial paralysis and major surgery following a completely normal and familiar yoga position.
While this mind-body exercise can bring a world of benefits to its followers, it’s important to realize how much strain on the spine, neck and hips the positions can bring. In some cases, the vertabrae can separate, cut off blood flow through important arteries and simply give way when a position is pushed too hard for too long. Glenn Black, a progressive and accomplished yoga expert from New York, insists that the inherent dangers in yoga actually make it unsuitable for a lot of people, despite what the health nuts tell you. So tread carefully, yogis, and be careful what you ask of your body.
Walking. Yes, walking is excellent for your mental health, not to mention your cardiovascular fitness and overall muscle movement. But while it’s a very natural and gentle movement, it can also cause surprisingly serious injury to all parts of your body. The culprit is usually your form, and it can be difficult to know when it needs correcting and how to correct it.
As with most activities, balance is the key to avoiding pain and injury from walking. The lower part of your body is in constant motion, but what about what sits above? You may not realize how much work your core does to stabilize limb movement and support the major muscles in your upper legs, but it is working hard to allow full extension and to prevent your back from taking the brunt of the impact. If your core is weak, you can bet that you’ll start noticing more pain, and that can become chronic if you neglect it. If you’re a regular walker, consider adding a Pilates workout three times each week to get — and keep — the core stability your body needs.
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