The adage "use it or lose it" is not often quoted by victims of stress-related or repetitive motion injuries. That’s because, from their perspective, truer advice would be "use it and lose it." InteliHealth, a marketing website for Aetna that is allegedly stocked with health tips from the Harvard Medical School, doesn’t entertain the kind of semantic silliness that so fascinates Geezer. The site give advice, straight up, such as these four tips for preventing injury.
- Begin any new type of exercise
cautiously; do short, easy workouts for the first few weeks. Never
increase the length of your workouts by more than 5 percent from one
week to the next, and never increase both the length and the intensity
of your workout at the same time. - Avoid workouts that are
substantially harder or farther than anything you have done before. One
overly stressful workout is enough to cause painful inflammation. - Be sure your shoes fit well. Before wearing them during a workout, spend time breaking them in by walking around in them.
- If
you feel any tingling, aching or soreness in a joint, muscle or tendon
 either during or after a workout, or the next day  stop that
activity until all signs of discomfort are gone. Also, swelling is not
normal. Pain that is not relieved by a short period of rest is not
normal.