It is not uncommon for anyone doing repetitive sports to get injured at some point, though I think that each of us are more prone to injury in certain areas (and some just generally more prone than others). It may have to do with how we are built, muscle imbalance, our form, or a variety of other things. While injuries are never any fun, if and when they do happen there is usually something we can learn about ourselves and something we can do to prevent that same type of injury in the future.

While it can be difficult to see at the time, there is something useful we can learn from most injuries. If lucky we can catch it early and make a change without missing some or any training. Sometimes though we may miss a month or a season and then can hopefully incorporate something when we get back to training to prevent it from happening again.

I have experienced this a number of times.

To give a couple of examples, when I try high intensity quick movements, such as an Insanity workout, I seem to get injured far too often. I have learned that lesson a couple of times and keep not wanting it to be the case, so I return to it. Perhaps after hurting my back pretty badly the last go around I will let it go and enjoy other physical endeavors.

Probably the better example is a series of hip flexor injuries. This is a muscle that attaches to the top of our femur in front of our hip. I would get very tight to the point it would hurt to walk. Sometimes this would happen after a run, but many times it was after a long hike. I did some research and discovered a set of strength exercises that target that particular area. I have been doing these exercises before my morning runs for the last couple of years and haven’t experienced the same debilitating injury since. Here is the set of exercises I do, though I really believe that we are all designed differently and hopefully you can find whatever you need to target potential injury areas to increase your stretches of fun, injury free training!