How to not hurt your back playing sports

 Everyone knows that playing sports can be dangerous. People get sports related injuries all the time, but when your actually playing you never think that they could happen to you. Earlier this year, when playing volleyball I managed to separate two of the vertebrae in my spine. The sad thing was that this could have been prevented with a few easy steps. By remembering to thoroughly stretch and keeping core muscles strong, the risk of back injuries becomes greatly reduced.

To start, its important to make sure your back muscles are stretched before beginning any physical activity. Often, people are so focused on leg and arm muscles that they forget about back muscles entirely. Every muscle in your body needs to warm up and can be strained during exercise. This is especially important in sports like volleyball, dance, and football where the back is used often. Some useful stretches include knees to chest, lower back rotations, and cat stretches. By stretching, the chance of accidentally tearing or straining a muscle is lessened significantly.

In addition to stretching your muscles, it’s important to keep them strong to be able to support and protect your spine. As much as I hate to say it, exercises like planking and sit ups are very important. Your core muscles help keep your spine in alignment and when they’re weak its easier to damage your spine. Not only can strengthening your core muscles prevent injury, it can also help with things like lower back pain. Exercises like front plank, side plank, and reverse lunges are great ones to use. Core workouts have never been my favorite, but they’re necessary to stay healthy when playing sports.