For those of us who love the outdoors, summertime is when we really get to be active and enjoy life. But all this extra activity also puts us at higher risk of injuries… which is the fastest way to spoil the fun.
Whether you’re a sports enthusiast, outdoor adventurer or fitness fan, we’ve put together our top tips for staying healthy and avoiding injury during the warmer months. Read on for osteopath-approved advice on how to safely enjoy your favourite outdoor summer activities, with tips for avoiding common injuries during the warmer months.
Why Summer Injuries Are Common and How to Prevent Them
For a lot of us, summer is our most active time of the year. The sun’s out, the days are longer, and many of us are on holidays from school and work, making summer the best time to engage in all our favourite outdoor activities. We see a lot of our patients become more active over the summer, from tennis, to water sports, marathons and other endurance events we always get to hear about a range of activities through our patients.
Occasionally though, the unfortunate flip side to all this sporting motivation is that rates of injuries tend to increase over the summer months. It makes sense: if more of us are out there and getting active, there’s much more opportunity for us to push ourselves too far.
Overuse injuries, like runner’s knee, tennis elbow and Achilles tendonitis, are some of the most common summer injuries we see in the clinic. Sprains, strains and overuse injuries are also common. These can sometimes be down to bad luck, but they’re also more likely to occur if you’re pushing yourself too hard, before you’ve built up enough strength and capacity for the training you’re doing, or if you haven’t warmed up before jumping into exercise.
The good news is that many common summer injuries can be prevented with some forethought, care and preparation. We’ll dive into our go-to summer injury prevention tips below.
Top Injury Prevention Tips for Summer Activities
As with any injury prevention, often the most effective solutions are the simplest and easiest things to do. They do also apply at any time of the year, not just during the summer months.
Take your time to warm up and cool down before and after you exercise and don’t rush through this. It not only gets your body in a good position, but helps focus your mind on what you are about to do or what you’ve just achieved. We go into more detail about warming up and cooling down thoroughly later on in this article.
Mix up your exercise routine by cross-training throughout the week and month,. This helps you strengthen and mobilise different areas of your body, this is a good way to avoid over working one particular area of your body. For example, weight and strength training are great additions to any activities from long distance running, playing tennis to stand up paddle boarding!
Allow yourself to rest and recover adequately between your workouts, this helps your body become stronger overall and allows your musculoskeletal system time to adapt to what you are asking it to do.
During the summer months, it is vital to protect yourself from sunburn, heatstroke, and dehydration. Whether you’re hiking, cycling, or kicking a footy around with some friends, make sure you stay well hydrated, seek out shade and wear breathable clothing to allow your body some time to cool off. With some sports, protective clothing might be necessary so making sure you can stay cool enough whilst wearing this is important.
Hydration and Injury Prevention: The Link You Need to Know
Hydration might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about injury prevention, but it’s one of the most important things you can do when you’re exercising during the summer months. Dehydration is responsible for many summer injuries, leading to cramps, fatigue, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. In the very worst cases, dehydration can be fatal, so it’s not something to mess around with.
Hydration is particularly important for avoiding injuries or illness if you’re exercising outdoors in hot weather. When you’re sweating excessively, you’ll need to drink even more and take plenty of breaks in the shade. Drink plenty of water before and after heading out to exercise, and be sure to take plenty of water with you.
If you’re sweating excessively, consider replenishing lost electrolytes with an electrolyte or sports drink. Being properly hydrated can not only reduce the risk of injury and illness, but it will improve your exercise performance too.
Essential Warm-Up and Cool-Down Techniques for Summer Exercise
Warming up and cooling down are essential for avoiding injuries at any time of the year, and it’s no less important in the summer months, even though your body might already be feeling warm before you start moving. A warm up should increase blood flow to your muscles, increase your core body temperature and increased nerve impulse transmission preparing you for the activity you are about to do.
There are benefits to doing both dynamic stretching and static stretching, but dynamic stretching is a more organic movement that better mirrors the way your body moves during exercise. While you should adapt your routine to focus on the relevant body parts for the type of exercise you’re about to engage in, it’s still important to warm up your whole body before working out.
How to Stay Safe During Outdoor Summer Sports
Here in the UK, our summer weather can be changeable, so it is important to be prepared for weather changes, especially if it suddenly becomes much warmer than you thought it would be. Symptoms of sunburn often only appear in the hours after sun exposure, when it’s too late to prevent them, so don’t wait until you can see yourself tanning or burning to apply sunscreen, put on some protective clothing and a hat, and seek shade.
Make sure you have appropriate protective gear, especially for sports such as downhill mountain biking, bouldering, or rock climbing, as well as the correct clothing, hydration, and food available while you’re doing the activity. Joining a group can be a great way to see what equipment you need without having to buy everything to begin with.
The beach is a big part of the Brighton summer lifestyle, with kayaks, stand up paddle boards, windsurfing, kitesurfing and swimming. Staying safe on the water, whatever you are doing is vital in the summer. Tell someone where you are heading if you are going solo, or take a friend with you, wear a life jacket, have plenty of water and supplies with you and remember that alcohol and water sports don’t mix!
If you’ll be heading off the beaten track for a run or hike, make sure someone knows where you are heading to – you could consider taking a Personal Locator Beacon (or EPIRB) with you.
How to Recognise Common Summer Injuries and What to Do About Them
Listening to your body and recognising the signs of an injury can help you address these issues earlier rather than later. Doing this can help keep you active and reduce having to have time off due to injury.
Small niggling aches and pains are aren’t improving can be signs that your body needs some time to rest and recover and quite often people ignore these signs and exercise through them, its often a fine line between being fully capable to do what you’re asking your body to do and pushing it too far. And it is with the later, where injury may occur. If you feel discomfort, pain or excessive fatigue when exercising, take a break and give your body chance to recover. And if your discomfort doesn’t improve, it might be time to see an osteopath or physiotherapist for some professional advice.
To spot heat- and dehydration-related injuries, pay attention to signs like thirst, muscle cramps, shortness of breath, light-headedness and rapid breathing. If you start to notice these symptoms, take a break in the shade and focus on resting, rehydrating and cooling down. Should these symptoms continue, seek medical advice.
We all love our summer sports and activities, and many fitness enthusiasts feel healthier and fitter than ever in the warmer months. But accidents and setbacks are also more likely to occur during these months. Paying extra attention to injury prevention will help you avoid the common summer injuries that we see ending the summer fun for clients too often.
For tailored advice on creating your injury-proof summer exercise routine, book an appointment with us at Bright Osteopathy.