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Sports First Aid How Injuries Occur


 * Heavy weights on the body. Body tissue can handle large amounts of stress: more than three times your weight can go through the body even when jogging slowly. But tissues that aren't used to such forces won't have adapted to them and are likely to be injured when they're applied. When deciding how often, how hard and for how long to exercise, you need to consider the impact on your muscles and joints. Build up gradually to avoid injury.
 * Poor technique. A number of so-called 'overuse injuries' are related to sports or exercise technique. Indeed, some injuries are even popularly named after their sport (for instance, tennis elbow). Often it's the repetition of an action with faulty technique that results in excessive load on tissues and subsequent injury.
 * Poor or inappropriate equipment, especially footwear and, in some sports, headgear. If your activity involves impact (things such as running and jumping) then wearing proper footwear that supports your feet and cushions your body from shock is vital.
 * Failure to warm up and warm down. Many of the body's tissues (particularly muscle) respond better to loading when they're warm. The warming-up process should include whole body exercise that increases blood flow to muscles and makes them more responsive. At the end of every training session, you should also warm down, bringing your body back down to normal, usually through low intensity activity, followed by flexibility exercises.

Other injury risk factors include:
 * Leg length discrepancy
 * Muscle weakness or imbalance
 * Limited flexibility
 * Joint laxity - not being able to control and stabilise joints throughout their full range of motion
 * Being overweight - this increases the load on muscles, tendons, ligaments and joint structures during weight-bearing activities

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