- See your doctor for a sports physical before you start a sport.
- Don’t exercise when it is really hot and humid out. You do not want your body to overheat or get dehydrated. Also, if you live in an area with high air pollution, exercise early in the day or at night and avoid congested streets and rush hour traffic.
- Drink water before, during, and after exercise or sports competitions. Read more about the water your body needs.
- Make sure you warm up and stretch your muscles for 5 minutes before and after workouts to make your muscles more flexible. It is easer to get hurt if your muscles are not stretched. It is also important to increase the intensity of your workout gradually. If you exercise intensely right away, you could risk getting hurt. Check out tips on how to stretch before exercising.
- See a doctor or let your parents/guardian know if: 1) You are in severe pain, 2) you see swelling around where you got hurt, or 3) The pain gets in the way of sleep and activities. Don’t jump back to your regular exercise after getting hurt because you could get hurt again. Follow your doctor’s orders for how to care for your injury and when you can be active again. This includes following instructions for use of pain medicine.
- Follow the rules of the game! The rules are there, in part, to keep you safe.
Using the right equipment
When you exercise or play sports, it is important to use the right safety equipment.
Helmets are needed for sports such as baseball, softball, biking, snow skiing, and rollerblading. Make sure you wear the right helmet for the sport you are playing and that it is not too loose. Also make sure that the helmet you wear for biking has a sticker from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which means that it is safe for this activity.
Mouth guards protect your mouth, teeth, and tongue. You should wear a guard if there’s a chance you could get hit in the head while taking part in activities such as volleyball, basketball, or martial arts. You can find mouth guards at sport stores or your dentist. It will also help keep your mouth safe to take out your retainer.
Special eye protection is needed for sports such as ice hockey, soccer, and basketball. Goggles and face masks should fit snugly and have cushion for a comfortable fit. If you wear glasses, you need to get fitted for guards that fit over your glasses. You could also buy special prescription goggles, which cost about $60 or more. These guards and goggles are made with a special plastic called polycarbonate (say: pahl-ee-kar-buh-nayt). This special plastic will not hurt your eyes.
It is important to wear the right footwear for your sport. Check with your coach or an athletic shoe salesperson about what shoes to wear.
Wrist, knee, and elbow pads can help prevent broken bones when you are inline skating/rollerblading, skate or snow boarding, or playing sports such as hockey.
Over-exercising and how it can hurt you
Exercise is a very important part of being healthy. But for teens who exercise too much, it can become an addiction and lead to physical and emotional harm. Some teens use extreme, repeated activity to lose too much weight. For these girls, exercise helps them to control a powerful fear of being "fat."
How do you know if your exercise habits are unhealthy? Here are some signs:
- Feeling irritable if you can’t exercise
- Making exercise your highest priority
- Exercising when injured
- Planning your life around exercise
Over-exercising can hurt your body. Working-out too often can lead to:
- Pulled muscles
- Stress fractures
- Knee trauma
- Shin splints
- Strained hamstrings
- Ripped tendons
Missed Period
A missed period also is a concern for girls and women who over-exercise. Your body needs a certain amount of fat to function and to have regular periods. Eating right and exercising is important for having a healthy body, but some girls take it too far. Too much exercising or very strict dieting can use up your body fat and delay your period, or cause it to stop until you gain some weight back. Not having menstrual periods is called amenorrhea—a sign that hormone patterns have changed. Women who suffer from anorexia and elite women athletes who train seriously for competition often have amenorrhea.
Over-exercising also can harm your emotional health. It is linked to:
* Depression
* Eating disorders
Sometimes, teens over-exercise along with having an eating disorder such as anorexia. People with anorexia take extreme steps to lose weight, including not eating at all. This combination puts your health in danger.
If you think that you may be over-exercising or have an eating disorder, talk about it with someone you can trust. Talk to a school counselor or nurse. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to bring it up. If you think that your friend may have one of these problems, help them find someone to talk to. Be supportive and let them know you care about them.
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