Weight training, weight lifting and bodybuilding all come with the greatest prize of them all. The chance of an extended life and a better quality of living. On the other, for those who are sloppy, don't bother to learn anything about weight lifting or embark on a short-term quest to do a 300 workout without the slightest idea of their physical abilities, the same sport that offer the gift of better health, can give you a lifelong injury.

Before you hit the gym, it only takes a fraction of an hour to learn about the types of injuries that can occur in the gym, the most common bodybuilding injuries, some causes, the prevention and the most important thing of them all. What to do if you are injured.

Nobody wants an injury but with a few points, you'll be well on your way to building muscle and burning fat and staying injury free. And in the event you do suffer from some type of weight lifting injury, these tips will help ensure a fast recovery so that you can get back to bodybuilding again.

Some might say that it's not a matter of IF you get injured in some capacity weight lifting, but WHEN you get injured. That might be true.

I say it's more important to think of IF and WHEN I get injured, what am I going to do about it to get back on track as quickly as possible.

1. Tendonitis: Inflammation of a tendon.
2. Strain: Muscle tendon unit is stretched or torn.
3. Sprain: Stretched and possibly torn the ligaments.
4. Bursitis: Inflammation or irritation of the bursa. The bursa is a sac filled with lubricating fluid, located between tissues such as bone, muscle, tendons, and skin.
5. Avulsion: Complete tearing away of a muscle from the bone or tendon.
6. Contusion: An injury in which the skin is not broken; a bruise.
7. Fracture: The breaking of a bone, cartilage, or the like, or the resulting condition. A fractured is a name of the type of the break experienced.

1. Neck Strain: Injury resulting from undo stress placed on the muscles of the neck. Common during shoulder shrugs, squats, bridging, behind the next movements, head coming off the bench when pressing, etc.
2. Shoulder - Rotator Cuff: The rotator cuff is susceptible to many problems, which can cause weakness, tenderness and pain. These problems include overuse tendinitis, which can be caused by certain activities.
3. Pectoral Tear: Injury resulting from avulsion/tearing of the tendon connecting the Pectoralis Major to the humerous. In many cases, this is when the muscle becomes much stronger than the support ligaments and tendons.
4. Back Strain/Sprain: Indicated by pain at center of lower back, along top of gluteal muscles, or along paraspinal muscles. Usually resulting from lifting too much weight or using poor form during squats or deadlifts.
5. Knee Strain/Sprain: Various injuries include meniscal tears, patellar tendonitis, ACL tears, bursitis. Will be indicated by pain along the joint line of the knee, behind the knee joint, or just below the knee cap along the patellar tendon.
6. Tendonitis:

• Triceps Tendonitis: Triceps tendonitis causes pain in the back part of the upper arm near the point of your elbow.
• Tennis Elbow (lateral epicondylitis) : A condition where the outer part of the elbow becomes painful and tender, usually as a result of a specific strain or overuse.
• Golfer's Elbow (medial epicondylitis): Pain at the medial aspect of the elbow joint (inner bone on the upper portion of the forearm).
• Wrist Tendonitis Wrist tendonitis is a common problem that can cause pain and swelling around the wrist. Wrist tendonitis is due to inflammation of the tendon sheath.
• Achilles Tendonitis Achilles tendonitis causes pain and swelling in the back of the heel. o Patellar (Kneecap) Tendonitis Patellar tendonitis, or inflammation of the patellar tendon, is a condition often called Jumper's Knee.
• Rotator Cuff Tendonitis Shoulder bursitis or rotator cuff tendonitis.

1. Warm Up: Start with walking on the treadmill for 5-10 minutes, light biking or anything else that gets the blood flowing. This should not be strenuous at all. When it's time to hit the weights, perform anywhere between 2-3 warm up sets for the main muscle group in question using very light weight and slowly acclimating until you've reached a working set.
2. Stretch: After your workout, stretch the muscles you just worked (specific stretches) or do a full regime of stretches for every muscle group. Take the joint to the end of its range of motion and hold for 30 seconds to 1 minute. It is important to hold the stretch and not bounce. Bouncing a non-warm, non-stretched muscle can result in injury. Total stretching time can be as little as 5 minutes to 10 minutes. Performing stretching before exercise has not shown in recent studies to prevent injury. Stretching the muscle group you are working between sets can be beneficial to help with flexibility.
3. Focus: Keep your mind on what you are doing. The easiest way to hurt yourself or someone else in the gym is to no pay attention to what you are doing. Maintaining focus will also help to keep your form proper and to give a safe spot to your partner.
4. Control: Never let the weight control you. You control the weight on the upward and downward motions. You can be explosive but still in control.
5. Strong Core: With almost any exercise, having a strong core to support you, especially with squats and deadlifts, it will be to your benefit and subtly help you control the weight and provide an enormous amount of support for your safety.
6. Sleep: Sleep has an increased rate of anabolism (the synthesis of cell structures), and a decreased rate of catabolism (the breakdown of cell structures). Short bouts of sleep deprivation probably won't stifle your gains but long term sleep problems can certainly curtail your progress.
7. Shoes: Proper footwear is essential to the environment. Too many injuries have happened because it's summer, hot outside and somebody is wearing open-toed shoes that offer no protection whatsoever against falling plates, other people stepping on your foot, or catching a toenail on the edge of a machine. Wear stiff-soled comfortable shoes. If you do much running or walking you should replace your shoes every 3-4 months.
8. Wrapping: Using knee wraps during heavy squats help to protect your knee joints. They do this by helping to increase external pressure and distribute strain across a larger area. Wrist wraps are useful during heavy lifts such as deadlifts or shrugs. They not only prevent you from dropping the weight but will allow you to lift heavier because you don't have to worry about your grip.
9. Use of a spotter: Not just anybody who can be around to watch you but somebody who knows the exercise, knows how much pressure to apply to assist you and not do the work for you and is strong enough and can help if something goes wrong. Do you know anybody who's assisted you in the squat cage and has pulled back on the weight almost causing an accident? I do and it was because the spotter in question didn't know the first thing about how to perform the squat. That means they don't know how to spot an exercise they don't know how to do.
10. Use of safety equipment (racks): It's there for a reason right? Using the racks correctly can save your life in case something happens and you cannot control the weight or you reach complete muscular failure. This is especially true in heavy squats regardless of a spotter where you need to put the weight down and you certainly don't want to toss it off your back.
11. Use of common sense: As much as this seems silly to put in here, it truly would avoid about 7% of the gym injuries that happen. If you are done with pull-ups, don't end your movement at the top and swing off the equipment. That's not proper form but it's also just common sense not to swing off the bars in a crowded gym. Not only can you hit your head in midair on something, you can easily lose your balance and hit somebody else. It's common sense.
12. Continued education: Just like finances, nobody has a more vested interest in your overall health than you. You should do everything and anything you can to continue to learn about nutrition, weight lifting and how your body works. Read articles, subscribe to newsletters but keep health somewhere on the Top 10 of life's important things. You don't need to become an expert on the subject but you should care enough to want to continue to learn and make things better for yourself.
13. Limitation or elimination of unnatural exercises: Another way to prevent unwanted injury is to work within the range of motion for a given muscle group. There's well over 300 different exercises you can do so there's no reason to create ones that put yourself in a situation where it's uncomfortable or awkward to do the movement. If it's not a natural range of motion, you may want to reconsider the exercise or use it in a very limited fashion.
14. Proper form: Before doing an exercise, know how to do the exercise. Either watch a video performed by a professional or ask a qualified instructor to show you how to do it. Many times injuries occur because the person doing the exercise has no idea how to properly perform the movement and the focus is on moving the weight in any way possible. Enough cannot be said for understanding the movement you are about to perform and learning it's form before really giving it 110% of your efforts.
15. Balance:

• Physical: Too many people have been injured doing things they can do physically but don't have the balance and mind to muscle link to do correctly. A strong sense of balance can help you avoid injury when doing core movements or things that require balance.
• Muscular: It's important to work all body parts for muscular balance. Muscle works in an antagonist and agonist fashion. This pairing helps to balance and control motion. An example might be if your chest is stronger, you may tend to hunch, round inward because your back muscles and the posterior deltoid are not strong enough.

If you do happen to be injured here are a few of my recommendations to a speedy recovery.

1. Go see a doctor: If the injury is serious enough to see a doctor then you probably need to. Postponing the inevitable will only delay recovery time and the amount of time to get back in the gym.

2. In many cases you can first use the PRINCE approach or PRICE if you are against any type of medication.

P: Protection: Use a protective brace, such as an air stirrup or another form of support.

R: Rest: Give the injured area time to heal. Typically symptoms should resolve within 48 hours.

I: Ice: For at least the first 24 to 72 hours or until the swelling goes down, apply an ice pack for 10 to 20 minutes every hour or two during the day. After 48 hours, you can take contrast baths, which alternate cold and warm water.

NSAIDs or acetaminophen. NSAIDs (such as Advil and Motrin) are medicines that reduce swelling and pain. Acetaminophen (such as Tylenol) reduces pain.

C: Compression An elastic compression wrap, such as an ACE bandage, will help reduce swelling. You wear it for the first 24 to 36 hours. Compression wraps do not offer protection. So you also need a brace to protect your ankle if you try to put weight on it.

E: Elevation: Raise the injured area above the level of your heart for 2 to 3 hours a day if possible. This helps to reduce swelling and bruising.

Phew, the worst is over.

Learning about the various injuries is one thing but knowing some ways to avoid them might seem silly and common sense, but look around your gym. There are so many well-intentioned people desperately trying to better themselves. Unfortunately, they spend little to no time learning how to do and exercise correctly and at some point, they get an injury.

What's even more disheartening is that these people don't do a thing about it. Some finish their workouts making it worse. You don't see them again for months. Others just let it heal, usually incorrectly, and it's a lifelong injury where they can no longer do that movement anymore without pain.

Fitness and health is an all encompassing lifestyle. It's not just weight training or doing a single 300 workout. It's about the other 23 hours of the day. Rest, nutrition and especially recovery and rehabilitation from injury. If there's nothing else you learn from this section, know that if you are faced with a bodybuilding injury, your first plan of attack is to heal, recovery and do everything you can to speed up recovery and heal the area to its full potential.

Make it a point to be safe in the gym. If you don't know what you need to do, ask for professional or qualified help. That along can go a long way to keeping you injury free for many years.

Bodybuilding injuries might be common place but you can make them uncommon in your own life.