Muscle Building: Age Appropriate Training Part 2 by Frank Zane

How do you deal with an injury? The best thing to do is to stop training momentarily. Take a two to three day layoff.

You career will last longer if you avoid injuries. It is not uncommon to see many strength althletes become crippled while still relatively young�in their fifties�especially power lifters. Football linemen usually last 10 years at most because they are never able to take time off and recover. Winning is too important so a painkiller and lots of taping is often all they get for a severe injury. They pay dearly in retirement and are plagued by injury.

Bodybuilders suffer from similar but less severe injuries in their twilight years. One way to reduce this is to make a habit of using lighter weights to simulate much heavier ones by going slow on the negative part of the exercise.

Here are some common ways of preventing and healing injuries:

Chiropratic adjustments, heat: When an area gets injured it becomes inflamed and blood circulation is inhibited. Heat along with slight compression (a flexible lifting belt round the waist, elastic bandages around knees, elbows encourages warmth) while training is a way to keep blood flowing to the area.

Heat and Chiropractic adjustments. Heat and moderate compression through use of a belt or elastic bandages keep blood flowing to an injured area.

Nikken Magnets: Taping a Nikken body magnet to the injured area usually brings immediate relief. As long as I kept the magnet in place there was no pain. Blood contains iron in the form of hemoglobin; since magnets attract iron, it makes sense that they would increase circulation to injured areas. Best place to get body magnets is by searching Nikken on E-Bay.

Ice: Ice reduces swelling by impeding blood circulation but should not be left on more than thirty minutes.

By Frank Zane. This article first appeared in Frank Zane�s Building the Body and has been re-published here with his permission.