[islandboy]

Here's one that's got me holding back a bit on my workouts. I am one intense dude in the gym. I can push out some extra reps with some major intensity. However, sometimes I stop even when I feel like I could push a little more. Why??? I'm worried about INJURY! My questions relate to how an injury occurs, and when do I need to be especially concerned about injury.

I do not speak with any authority whatsoever, except for my own experience in the gym. Fortunately, I cannot speak with experience when it comes to a muscular injury. So, here goes:

1. I want to assume that if I am doing a set of about any movement, that if I am not trying to max-out (which I rarely ever do), then I should not worry about an injury. Even if I am forcing out extra reps with serious intensity, I want to think that I won't injur myself as long as I'm not squirming around, or holding my breath, etc. If I'm holding true to form, I should be able to push out as much intensity as I can without a tear, strain, etc. I'm thinking that if I'm able to push out 3 or more reps, then the more reps that I can do with added intensity is nothing more than mind over muscle. Am I close here on this one??

2. Especially during back exercises, I get a serious pump with my forearms. Sometimes they feel so tight that they feel a little funny. Sometimes I feel that I'm very close to getting a "charlie horse" in them, or other muscle groups at times. Am I close to screwing anything up with this? If I do get a "charlie horse" am I going to have a problem??

Thanks!

[tim290280]

I have no idea what a 'charlie horse' is! If you are getting a pump in your forearms though from back I'd say that you lack some strength there. Thats something you should work on.

As for injuries, well there isn't a set rule on when you will injure yourself. Injuries can be as a result of poor recovery, poor movement (including dynamic sporting injuries), overloading, or poor balance of strength (weak muscle groups), and combinations.

So if you are still not healed from the last training session, or you use too much load, or crap form (and everyones form can stand to be better), or one of the muscles isn't as strong as the other muscles around it (such as rotor cuff), then injuries are just a matter of time. But most of these can be controlled with good program design and proper recovery.

[G O R T]

The main reasons for injuries:

Form - hard on lower back, shoulders , and knees

Execution - bouncing max weights tears things

Warmup - insufficient bloodflow to muscles

Overuse - muscle and facia not recovered

It sounds like you're worried about that last one. Working through some soreness is not a problem, but be carefull about going up in weight too fast. The muscle can grow much faster than the facia and tendons.

Take some time for high volume. It works well with losing weight and will help bring out vascularity when dieting.