Weight of Injury
 While Brian falls into the athletic weight trainer category, Kris represents the second group of at-risk people: fitness weightlifters. A 30-year-old woman, Kris has never performed regular exercise and hasn't participated in weightlifting for more than a year or two. Now, however, she participates in weight training and cardiovascular exercise four to six times a week. She also has a tendency to perform circuit training.
To mix it up, she likes to combine machines and dumbbells. Because she hopes to tone and sculpt her body and lose weight, she will usually stick with higher reps and lighter loads. This repetition leads to overuse tendinitis and sprains/ strains of the shoulder, knee and spine.
When people sustain injuries, they should rest, ice and use over-the-counter medication to control pain and inflammation for three days to three weeks. If they still can't return to normal exercise, they should seek a sports medicine doctor and begin treatment. Most untreated weight lifting injuries that don't subside in three weeks will eventually become chronic in nature.
To resolve the problem, people need specialized, hands-on treatment. As such, they should seek diverse, but not exclusive, treatment programs from numerous health care professionals. A team approach to resolving weight lifting injuries is important; no single profession can resolve these injuries faster or more effectively than the combination of multiple disciplines.
The first health care professional who can make an accurate diagnosis is usually an orthopedist or physiatrist specializing in sports medicine. From there, the physical therapists and physical therapist's assistants usually will need to follow these simple steps, in this order, to effectively treat weight lifting injuries for both groups of patients.
Find the cause. Any activity that perpetuates the inflammatory or pain cycles will substantially reduce the effectiveness and ultimate outcome of any treatment program. That's why finding the cause of the problem is crucial. Injuries almost always stem from a lack of knowledge and from setting inappropriate goals. To find out where the patient is going wrong, the physical therapist must question patients extensively, asking them which machines or types of exercise bring on symptoms. 
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