How to Prevent Broken Bones, Sprains and Injuries

Whether you play sports, love to work out, or neither, preventing bone mass loss and strength is a good way to prevent osteoporosis, arthritis, and a lot of painful ailments that could affect you in the suture. It is also a great way to prevent a number of injuries from sprains and pulled muscles, to broken bones. But by making some changes to what you do every day, you can easily prevent this loss.

Your Diet

Everybody knows to drink milk for stronger bones, but what if you don’t like dairy? There are many other options!

• Spinach (1 cup = ¼ of your daily requirement!)
• Sesame seeds & flaxseed
• Brazil nuts & almonds
• Herbs (1 tbsp thyme = 84 mg calcium)
• Soy

Besides getting your daily calcium intake, also be sure to get these:

• Vitamin C – A powerful antioxidant, vitamin C not only fights viruses and germs; it also slows down the aging process in your body, including your bones!
• CoEnzyme Q10 – Another anti-ager, CoEnzyme Q10 is naturally produced by your body, but less is made as you age. Getting some more in can help slow down bone mass loss drastically.
• Folic Acid is recommended to pregnant mothers because of its ability to speed up the cell renewal process, which helps to build stronger bones!

Your Workouts

Besides training for one specific thing only, be sure to train your entire body every time you hit the weights. Building muscle works as a great bone protector, keeping them safe from injury and making them stronger. Be sure to work all the major muscle groups in your core, legs, gluts, and arms. Also remember to warm up before working out or playing sports and to stretch afterwards.

Everyday

By being more careful about small things in your everyday life, you can help to strengthen and protect bones, and prevent injury.

• Stretching: Try doing some small stretches every morning to limber up and allow your muscles to lengthen out. Tight muscles can mean injuries.
• Moving: If you have a desk job, be sure to get up at least once an hour to move around a bit – even just to walk to the washroom. This helps stretch out muscles, and gets joints moving and lubricated.
• Posture: Be sure to always keep good posture when sitting, standing, exercising or playing sports. Good posture can prevent a number of injuries in the core, and also activates other muscles to do the same.