One thing is clear: With the right know-how, you not only train more effectively, you also reduce your risk of injury. Nevertheless, rumors about fitness and regeneration keep circulating among recreational athletes. We took a closer look at four persistent sports mistakes.
Table of Contents
1. Running too slow
If you run slowly, you burn more fat – you stumble over this statement again and again. The fact of the matter is, prolonged endurance training at a lower intensity doesn’t necessarily help burn more body fat.
While slow cardio helps burn a higher percentage of fat calories, the absolute amount of fat burned is small due to the low energy expenditure. With a higher intensity of exercise, however, the number of total calories consumed is significantly higher and thus also the (absolute) proportion of fat calories burned.
So the bottom line is, the higher the intensity, the more calories you burn, and the more calories you burn, the more weight you lose.
2. Too much stretching after exercise
Contrary to popular belief, post-exercise stretching does not necessarily reduce muscle soreness or injury-related discomfort.
The more intense and strenuous a workout , the higher the likelihood of muscle soreness and the more careful you should be about post-workout stretching. Intense stretching can actually widen the tiny tears in your muscle fibers even further.
Also, there is no scientific evidence that a stretched muscle is less prone to injury. Injuries are due to a variety of factors. Examples include improper technique, an imbalance in the relevant muscles, or insufficient warm-up. However, targeted stretching exercises, which are carried out as part of a warm-up program before training, can help to reduce the risk of injury.
The key difference is that instead of focusing on lengthening your muscles (static stretching), these exercises prepare your muscles and your body’s support structures (tendons, ligaments, and cartilage) for the demands of the workout ahead (dynamic stretching).
3. Refrain from running
You’ve probably heard that running is bad for your knees. A widespread misconception is that the increased strain when running causes lasting damage to the knee joints and that osteoarthritis or joint problems develop over time. However, the opposite is the case.
Numerous studies have shown that recreational and competitive athletes are less likely to develop knee osteoarthritis than people who do not do any sport, and that running is therefore not a risk factor for knee osteoarthritis.
Moderate running training is therefore not harmful to the cartilage, but even seems to be important, because the stimulus increases the blood flow to the affected joints and supplies important nutrients better.
Conclusion: Running in itself is definitely good for your knees – however, the wrong running technique, unsuitable running shoes or even excessive training can damage your knees.
4. Exercising too much
Exercising is healthy – but at a certain point, too much exercise can be detrimental to your health. The lack of necessary rest periods between training sessions can affect both the physical and mental performance of athletes and promote injuries. Other signs of physical strain are increased blood pressure, gastrointestinal problems, loss of appetite, fatigue, insomnia, hormonal disorders, susceptibility to infections and frequent pain in muscles or joints. There are two classifications of overtraining: overexertion and overtraining.
Overtraining usually occurs after several days of hard training in a row. This causes you to feel drained or experience muscle soreness beyond normal. Overloads are easily reversed with rest breaks.
Overtraining is when signs of overload or injury are ignored and training continues. Full recovery from an injury can take weeks or months and presents a particular challenge for a passionate athlete. Pay special attention to adequate sleep and rest, healthy eating and mental well-being to avoid symptoms of overtraining.
