According to Dr. Kevin Plancher, 50,000 gym exercisers are treated each year. Some are accidents such as falling off treadmills/exercise balls, dropping heavy weights on toes and so on. These types of accidents are sometimes difficult to avoid, however others such as back pain are easily avoidable. For example, bench pressing too much weight can put enormous strain on the lower back, leading to back ache. Also, hunching over a stepper machine can cause muscle aches and discomfort in the shoulders and back.

No matter how fit you are, an injury can occur to anyone so it is important to take caution when exercising. Follow our tips and stay injury free.

1. Warm up! Don’t exercise without warming up. Running gently for a few minutes increases the heart and blood flow rates and loosens muscles, ligaments, tendons and joints. This can decrease the chance of injuries.
2. Stretch! Now that the muscles are flexible, you can begin stretching them. Holding a stretch for around 15 seconds, slowly releasing it and exhaling at the same time is a great way of ensuring your muscles are ready for exercising. Make sure you don’t stretch to the point of pain and never bounce on a fully stretched muscle.
3. Accept your limitations! As we age, our musculoskeletal system ages and bones lose density and strength. Also, ligaments and tendons become stiff, lose circulation and as a result, become more vulnerable to injury. It is best to carry out high repetitions of exercises with low weights to prevent the muscles becoming over exerted.
4. Best foot forward! Correct footwear is essential if you participate in an activity more than three times a week. Running shoes are designed to propel you forward, however if you are carrying out a lot of side-to-side movements, the ankle can roll to the side. This stretches the ligaments and causes you to sprain or even break your ankle. Wearing cross-training shoes for these types of exercises is more suitable.
5. Watch your back! Looking after your back when exercising is as important as when relaxing. Whether you’re watching TV, working in an office or driving a taxi, your back should be given the support it needs. Too many of us slouch in our chairs or in the incorrect posture. This can lead to back pain and more specifically, muscle aches, nerve pains and tension in the spine or shoulders. These can become aggravated the more time we spend in these positions.

The Dynaspine Back Support was designed specifically to counter these problems. Dynaspine is unique, it moves as you sit in different positions and provides consistent support. The two back support plates are built on a special spring mechanism that allows the plates to conform to the shape of your back and offer optimal support.

Other features of Dynaspine include central vents that promote optimal airflow to prevent the back from becoming hot and uncomfortable, height adjustable to allow for the perfect fit for all body shapes and sizes and lightweight so it can be taken almost anywhere.

The Dynaspine back support can be purchased for only £79.99 from Dynaspine International. (http://www.dynaspineinternational.com/shopping/portable-back-supports/dynaspine-portable-back-support.aspx)

Dynaspine is recommended by Personal Trainer and iTS Master Biomechanics Coach, Rachel France; “As a personal trainer I recommend the Dynaspine to clients suffering with low back pain. If I loan them mine for a week they always want one of their own!”

If you’ve been planning to start up at your local gym but just haven’t had the motivation then consider using promotional codes. Saving money might just be the push you need. If the idea of having wash board abs isn’t enough to lure you into the gym then cheaper gym membership will make it easier to get your money’s worth thanks to promotional codes. Working up a sweat to gain fitness is stress enough without having to fork out large amounts just to do so, but with promotional codes you will be able to take a large chunk out of gym membership and cost rather than it taking a
large chunk out of you!

The rugby union preseason takes place during the summer and during this time there is a massive push for physical gains. Now most fitness coaches will vary on their approach but this is an outline of what is common during the summer period for pro rugby players.
Weights usually consist of three or more sessions a week with three sets of ten as a starting point for most players. As the season gets closer the sets and reps come down with more placed upon explosive movements, like Olympic lifts such as Power Cleans and Clean Pulls. The weights are also tailored with a plymetric program which will help ensure that speed ability is successfully transferred from the gym to the pitch.

With regards to running fitness I think it’s fair to say the days of running around fields for thirty minutes or even doing a 3k run are long gone. These have been replaced with fitness games played to incorporate the ball and running fitness. This is teamed with running intervals and speed endurance work trying to improve players’ ability to repeat efforts and recover quickly. In all sports the training has become very specific and rugby is no different. The idea is to run faster for longer, be as strong and as powerful as possible, while managing your weight and being at a size which will help you play your game how you’d like to. With rugby you really have to be competent with all aspects of fitness and after the summer when most physical gains are made the trick is to hold on to your fitness levels as the games start coming up.

http://koogarugbykit.co.uk/

Take out health insurance with PruHealth and you could get cheap or even free gym membership. PruHealth medical insurance are offering members the chance to get free gym membership from leading gyms; LA Fitness, Cannons and Virgin Active when they sign up for medical insurance with them.

The company has recognised that people who live healthy lifestyles and go to the gym regularly are less likely to claim on their insurance, so promoting the company this way is of benefit to them as they hope that through this scheme their insured members will get healthier and have less problems.

When you sign up for the medical insurance they work out your personal health plan as you would expect, and tell you what the monthly fee would be. Then, you also get the chance to sign up to a gym membership as well. To do this, you put in your locality and can choose which gym that’s local to you, you’d like to be a member of. Then you simply pay a one off activation fee of £25 to join your chosen gym be it LA Fitness, Cannons or Virgin Active, and £25 a month for the first three months of your gym membership. As long as during this first 3 months you have visited the gym an AVERAGE of twice a week or more, your membership will then be subsidised by PruHealth and will be free at standard LA Fitness or Cannons health clubs, and if you’ve chosen a Virgin Active club it will be either £5 or £15 a month depending on the club. You need to continue to visit the gym an AVERAGE of twice a week over each 3 month period, and as long as you do this, your membership will remain subsidised.

The basic catch with this offer is that you do have to make sure you visit the gym an average of twice a week each quarter. The reason for this is that your card is swiped when you enter and that shows to PruHealth that you are visiting the gym regularly. If your number of visits drops down below the average 2 per week, then you will start paying fees on a sliding scale according to how often you do visit. Sounds a bit odd I know, but as the idea is that PruHealth are rewarding their clients for getting fit and staying fit, this is how it works.

If you are already a PruHealth policy holder and took the old 6 month free gym membership offer you will be moved to the new gym membership model when your policy comes up for renewal. It is possible to cancel and renew immediately, but is only worth doing this if you are outside of the 6 months free gym membership period, and are prepared to pay the £25 activation fee (you won’t pay this if you’re moved across automatically on policy renewal).

If you already have membership at either Cannons or Virgin Active, you will need to wait till your contract with them ends before you can move over to the PruHealth scheme. If you are a member of LA Fitness, you can switch to the PruHealth scheme with immediate effect however.

If you have been planning on taking out gym membership, then this is definitely an offer worth investigating particularly if you are reasonably young and without many health issues, as your premiums with PruHealth are liable to be lower than the cost of a standard gym membership, and even taking into account the £25 activation fee and first three months at £25 you will probably still find yourself paying less.

Click the image link below to take advantage of the free gym membership offer

Get 1 month FREE at LA Fitness, Dragons, and other participating health clubs. And after your free month trial you qualify for special membership deals with prices starting at just £18.99 per month.

How to get your free month

1. Find a club near you by entering your postcode in to the search engine below or just scroll down the club list.
2. Click the on to the club you want. Then just chose the membership that best suits your needs and click on the “Apply Now” button. Your free trial will be for the membership category you chose.
3. Complete the form and then you will be able to print off a voucher for your free trial. Your free trial will be for the type of membership you have chosen.
4. Print your voucher and go to your club for an induction.

Tip!

Click on the “the deal” button on the club page for an explanation of the membership and any restrictions that may apply.

The deal

You get a free month at any of our gyms AND you can buy membership at a special rate if you want to. If you stay on as a member there are no joining fees – how good is that? *

To get your free trial you will be asked complete a direct debit form (LA Fitness & Dragons) or enter credit card details (other clubs) and nominate the membership category you want if you chose to continue membership after your free trial. We take this information now so that you don’t need to contact us again if you decide to buy a membership at the end of your free month.

http://www.thegymwebsite.co.uk/handbag/

Finding a Gym that suits you can be tricky, especially if you have to join the gym before you can get a chance to see what it’s like and whether it really is going to be your cup of tea. Thankfully, there are a number of gym’s at the moment that are offering a free pass so that you can try out the gym and see if it is what you want.

Nuffield Healthare

Nuffield Healthare offering a free one day guest membership pass, you will need to fill in the form on the site here: http://join.nuffieldhealth.com this guest membership allows you to see what their facilities are like and also gives you the opportunity to try a few of them for yourself.

LA Fitness

LA Fitness are offering a free one day fitness pass for potential new members to any one of their 67 clubs across the country. You need to go to the website and fill in your details then you can print your voucher out and take it along to your nearest club.

http://www.lafitness.co.uk/voucher-forms/1-Day-Pass/

Esporta

Esporta Health & Fitness Clubs are offering a free one day pass by filling in the form on their website, but do check that there is a club near you taking part as they are not offering this free pass at all of their clubs sadly.

http://www.esporta.com/free_day_pass.asp

Are you over weight?
If you are more than just a few pounds overweight then it may well be worth going along to see your doctor. Sounds a little odd I know, but these days, surgerys are not just offering pills and potions to help get you healthy. Some of them are also helping people in other ways with free or reduced membership to gyms and slimming clubs on prescription. This varies from area to area, and within each area from surgery to surgery, and also, different doctors seem to have different criteria that they work on as to who is eligible, but you’ll certainly lose nothing from asking if it’s available to you.

Do you have a loyalty card?
An even more odd question when we’re talking about gym memberships you might think, but not necessarily.

If you have a nectar card, you could choose to save your points up and use them on some fitness equipment, or a pass to use the gym. For 500 points you can get a 1 day pass for up to 2 people at Cannon Health Clubs. 1,500 points will get you a 5 day pass for up to 2 people and 3,000* points will get you a 10 day pass for 1 person including two 30 minute personal training sessions.

If you carry and use a Tesco Club card, you could save your points up and swap them for deals tokens which are worth four times the value of a regular club card voucher (i.e. £2.50 worth of club card vouchers is worth £10 of deals tokens).

Deals tokens can be swapped for a variety of things, and one option for their use is as payment for membership to an LA fitness centre. You can use them as full or part payment, so even if you don’t have enough to cover the whole cost of your membership, you could pay for it in part at least. If you are currently a member, you’ll need to wait till your membership expires in order to use deals tokens for the next year’s membership. Normal rules of membership apply.

Another place you can use your deals tokens is to purchase annual membership or for your joining fee at a Virgin Active Health Club. (Formally they were called Holmes Place.). Not all Virgin Health club’s accept deals tokens however, so do make sure you check on the Club Card Website before you save for this to make sure your local Club is involved.

Are you on Benefits?
Some Gyms will offer reduced membership fee’s if you are in receipt of certain benefits, so it’s worth asking when you are looking into gym’s to see if you might be entitled to this. Generally the smaller independent Gyms seem to be the ones that are more likely to offer this, but ask regardless of where you go. Remember, if you don’t ask, you don’t get, and you will never lose out for just asking.

*This is currently discounted to 1,500 points until 20th Feb 2008.

Full details about Tesco Clubcards Points