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Dr. Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD talks about prevention of injury during exercise with Mike Hildebrant, BS, CPT from Axiom Fitness.

Dr. Karlfeldt, ND, PhD: With me I have Mike Hildebrandt, Fitness Director over at Axiom Fitness. One thing that people are dealing with when they are getting going with any kind exercise, obviolusly, is a fear of injuring themselves. And a lot of people go through that experience.

Mike Hildebrandt, BS, CPT: Absolutely. And when you start exercising, there’s so many different options for exercise. There’s a million different machines, and there’s so many exercise videos on the Internet and what not.

So as you start your exercise program, it’s important to create exercises specifically that don’t include just move in what we call the sagital plane of motion, which would just be forward and back. And when you think about it, a lot of your typical exercises at the gym do work just in the front or back motion.

Dr. K: You do just like this, you do this, you do this … I mean all of it is straight up, and forward.

MH: Exactly. And where most people get injured, especially as you come into the colder months, slipping on ice, tripping over things … that’s where a lot of people get injured.  And what makes a big difference here, is working outside of the front and back plane of motion.

Dr. K: Oh, how should you do that?

MH: A very simple exercise that you can do is just a variation to a squat. So where we might normally squat, straight in front, you can try taking a step to the side. And this is pretty easy to do if you take a step to the side, squat down. You can come up to balance, step to the side, squat down, come up to balance.

By doing something like that, you’re preparing yourself for what might happen, that could prevent injury. So if you have a situation where you quickly have to move to the side, you’re able to do that.

Dr. K: So would you do that with additional weight, if you want to hold the weight then? And going down to the side like that?

MH: That would be great, if you’re ready for it. Everybody should start doing it with just their own body weight, and it can actually be pretty challenging.

Dr. K: Just that by itself?

MH: And that’s just one of the exercises that we can do. Just walking sideways, or a side shuffle can be great as well. Using exercises that get you out of the front range of motion, can be very important for you, to prevent injury and get the most out of your exercise program.

Dr. K: Wonderful!

Photo by Leo Rivas on Unsplash. 

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