Due to the dangerous elements involved, extreme sports activities often lead to an injury, some even life-threatening. This article will explore some common injuries linked to certain extreme sports and some proactive approaches to prevent injury from coming your way.
If you are involved in an extreme sport you know it can take a toll on the body leaving you achy and stiff for days. You’ve probably sustained an injury of some kind, comes with the turf to a degree. Many of us use therapies or self care tools to help our bodies recover but have you ever tried using some of these same tools for prevention? Let’s look closer at a few examples.
Climbing
Climbing can be a demanding sport on the upper body especially the shoulders regardless of your level of conditioning. Injuries like rotator cuff and pulley tears, sprains, strains, and chronic tendonitis in the shoulders and elbows are common.
If you’ve never tried a massage gun you may be missing out on the perfect solution for warm up, recovery and to target aches and pains as needed at home or on the go. Boost circulation to warm up muscles and joints while reducing any aches and pains left over from the last climb. Lifepro’s DynaMini is a pocket sized massage gun you could pack with you to target tension anytime anywhere.
Mountain Biking
For those into mountain biking you are no stranger to abrasions, lacerations, knee and back pain, joint sprains, even things like shoulder separations and broken collarbones! If these are things you have experienced you know they can take time to heal and keep you away from riding all together where serious.
Like our climbers this sport can weigh heavily on the upper body and adequate warm up and recovery can not only help you reduce injury but may improve performance as well. For the scrapes and scratches, you can expedite healing and recovery while reducing pain with a red light therapy tool. Consider Lifepro’s LumiCure Torchlight for fast effective relief from joint pain or the BioHeal Infrared Light Panel for a longer, more relaxing total body treatment at home.
Skateboarding
Not surprisingly abrasions and lacerations are also common in the skateboarding community - along with head traumas and lots of sprains and strains. Although a proper helmet may be the best way to reduce the risk of head trauma, you can manage the aches, pains and tension using a massage gun or red light tools WHILE recovering from many bumps to the head… massage helps boost circulation and flush lactic acid build up while red light therapy is dual purpose, can serve as a warm up and recovery tool while accelerating wound healing for the scrapes and scratches!
Skiing and snowboarding
Skiing and snowboarding share many of the common injuries as other extreme sports we’ve discussed but risk increases in colder climates and higher speeds! You can add to our injuries already discussed some knee tears, dislocations, lower body fractures, along with the sport specific issues like skier’s thumb and general hand, wrist and shoulder strains. Warming up muscles and joints can help reduce risk of injury and even help improve flexibility and stability on the hill. Having a few self care tools in your gear can help keep you active and injury free.
Taking a literal bird’s eye view, our final highlight for injuries in extreme sports is skydiving. Everything we already have on the list like abrasions, lacerations, concussions, dislocations, fractures, neck and back injuries along with all the sprains and strains. Most obvious of all being the possibility of spinal injury or even death…
Skydiving places every part of your mind and body into a thrill ride reaching for terminal velocity as you plummet towards the earth at speeds of up to 120 mph! This aloe can place tremendous strain on muscles and joints let alone if you have a less than perfect descent... Might need to use a massage gun or a red light therapy tool just to manage the stress that is building just writing about this!
If you live life to the extreme edge of your chosen sports, keep playing hard and recover smarter, even FASTER with simple self care tools that compliment your hunger for and active lifestyle. Keep moving and feeling your best and let us help you manage the aches and pains and possibly offer new gains.
You can see the DynaMini and Lifepro’s lineup of red light wellness tools at https://lifeprofitness.com/. Seek alternatives for your alternative lifestyle you may just find the solution you never knew you needed!
Author
Joel Gottehrer
Joel Gottehrer is the Co-Founder of Lifepro Fitness and has dedicated his life to helping people transform theirs. With over 12 years of experience in the fitness industry as a personal trainer and owner of two personal training studios, Joel has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to helping transform lives. After suffering from physical injuries, Joel and his business partner, Abraham Brach, came together with a common goal to alleviate the pain caused by their injuries.
They continued to find themselves disappointed with the results stemming from various products promising to relieve their pain, and with that – Lifepro Fitness was born. Joel's mission is to have a positive impact on millions of lives with the Lifepro brand. Whether it's finding new and innovative ways to help people recover from injuries or developing products to improve overall wellness, Joel is always looking for ways to push the boundaries. Thanks to his commitment to help people live their lives free of pain, Lifepro has been able to do this for thousands of people since its founding in 2017.
