Sports injuries often happen during competitions when athletes are pushing themselves to the limit. However, you can minimize your chances of experiencing an injury during competition by avoiding some common mistakes.
The following are six competition mistakes that put you at risk of experiencing a sports injury.
Failing to prepare yourself for the demands of competition during training
Your training regime should prepare you for competition without pushing you too hard. If your body isn't prepared for the rigors of competition during training, you may not be ready for competition and could be highly susceptible to injury.
During your hardest workouts, you should ideally be exerting yourself even more than you do during competition. This is a good way to ensure that competitions won't push your body too hard.
Playing through significant pain
While you might experience a slight injury from a fall or collision during a competition that's minor enough to play through, you definitely shouldn't play through significant pain.
Continuing to push yourself in competition when you've already got a pretty bad injury can aggravate the situation and lead to a severe injury that could put you on the bench for the rest of the season.
Overdoing it regarding your competition schedule
Don't schedule competitions too close to one another time-wise. Competitions can take a lot out of your body. That's why you should give yourself adequate time to rest between each competition.
Taking time out between competitions won't only help prevent injuries, but could also lead to better performance at your competitions.
Neglecting to warm up and stretch before competitions
Preparing for every one of your competitions with a proper warm-up is important. When you warm up, you make your muscles and joints loose and warm. Stiff, cold joints that are shocked by immediate exertion without any warm-up are more likely to experience injuries.
Not wearing safety equipment
If safety equipment such as padding or mouth guards is typically worn during your sporting activity, make sure that you don't try to play without it. You'll leave yourself more susceptible to injury than everyone else out on the field if you don't equip yourself properly.
Not taking time out to rest during competitions
If you start to feel worn out during competitions, you shouldn't be afraid to take some time out to rest on the bench and let your muscles recover. Listen to what your body is telling you during competitions and make sure that you don't push yourself too hard.
Contact a local sports medicine service to get more advice.