Preventing Sports Injuries: Why Load Spikes Cause Most of Them
The short answer: Most sports injuries are not caused by weak muscles or cold weather. They are caused by doing too much, too soon, after doing too little — a spike in training load your tissues have not been prepared for.
- Load spikes injure people, not absolute load. Sudden jumps are the risk.
- Two weeks off then straight back in is the classic setup.
- Build back gradually — think roughly 10% more per week, not double.
- Strength training is protective, not just performance work.
The pattern is so consistent it is almost boring. Someone trains steadily, has a break — illness, holiday, a busy fortnight at work — then returns at exactly the volume they left at. Two weeks later something hurts.
What is a load spike?
A sudden increase in how much work your body is asked to do, relative to what it has recently been used to. It might be distance, intensity, frequency, or a new surface or sport.
Tissues adapt to load, but slowly — tendon and bone more slowly than muscle and fitness. That gap is the problem: your cardiovascular system is ready to do the session before your Achilles is.
How fast should I build?
A useful rule of thumb is increasing weekly volume by around 10% rather than in jumps. It is not a precise law, but it points the right way: after time off, come back below where you stopped and rebuild, rather than resuming at full volume.
The signal to watch: discomfort that settles within a day is usually fine. Pain that is worse the morning after, or that gets worse as a session goes on, means the dose was too high.
Does strength training prevent injuries?
Yes, and it is the most reliably protective thing available. It works partly by making tissues more tolerant of load and partly by improving how well you control movement when you are tired — which is when most injuries happen.
It also does not need to be much. Two sessions a week covering the main patterns is enough to matter.
What about warming up and stretching?
A proper warm-up helps — raising your temperature and rehearsing the movements you are about to do at speed. Static stretching before sport has little evidence behind it for injury prevention, and is better kept for afterwards or as its own session if you want more range.
What if something already hurts?
Get it looked at early rather than training around it for a season. Most overload injuries respond well when they are caught early and the load is managed rather than stopped completely — “rest it” is rarely the whole answer. Our gym-based rehab space is built for rebuilding load tolerance, and general physiotherapy information is here.
Daisy Hill Physio is at U4 11–13 Allamanda Dr, Daisy Hill QLD 4127, in Logan, Queensland — south of Brisbane, not Logan in Utah — and we have been here since 1987. Book an appointment online or call 07 3209 2000 and tell reception what you are trying to get back to doing.
This is general information, not a diagnosis. If you cannot weight-bear, heard a pop at the time of injury, or have significant swelling, seek assessment promptly.
Reviewed by Arvin Benzon, Physiotherapist at Daisy Hill Physio — hybrid athletes, powerlifting and running. Reviewed 14 August 2026.
Sources: Strength and Conditioning Journal 2026 review of training-load spikes and injury risk in hybrid athletes. British Journal of Sports Medicine consensus statements on load management and injury prevention in athletes.
