Today's Edition
KUUMAR SHYAM (ABU DHABI)
The holy month of Ramadan concluded, the festive Eid celebrations have passed, and for many in the UAE, the focus has shifted sharply toward the scales.
For Eugene Jackson, a 34-year-old corporate executive, the transition from late-night suhoors to a high-intensity interval training class seemed like the logical step to “reset” his fitness. Within 20 minutes of his first session, however, a sharp pop in his calf muscle brought his ambitions to a grinding halt.
“I thought I could just pick up where I left off before the break,” Jackson explains while ice-packing a grade two muscle tear. “I spent the last few weeks were relatively sedentary, and then I tried to explode into a sprint on the treadmill. My mind was ready, but clearly, my body was still in holiday mode.”
His story is becoming increasingly common across the Emirates. While the nation’s sporting calendar is packed with elite events – from triathlon to golf and to high-stakes jiu-jitsu – a quieter, more painful trend is emerging among the “weekend warriors” and fitness enthusiasts of the general public.
According to Dr Anna Zickerman, a renowned sports medicine specialist who has treated golfers such as Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Henrik Stenson and some cricketers as well, the danger often lies in the disconnect between our daily routines and our sudden bursts of athleticism.
Data from a 2024 study published in the National Library of Medicine suggests that a staggering 43% of sports-related injuries now occur within the confines of the gym.
“The problem we have is we all lead a very sedentary lifestyle,” says Zickerman, who runs the UAE’s leading sports clinic with six centres, Up and Running. “We sit between nine to 12 hours a day, and certainly some people in the corporate world, people in finance, people in insurance, they sit long, long hours.
“They feel guilty because they have not been exercising and they feel they have got to compensate for the sedentary lifestyle they have. They then go to the gym and they try to burn it off, but the muscles and tendons have got so used to office postures that a couple of minutes of stretching does not help.”
This often manifests as acute trauma or overuse injuries.
For Farah Mohammed, a 29-year-old marketing professional, the injury didn’t happen under a barbell, but on the padel court. Padel has swept through Abu Dhabi and the wider UAE as the social sport of choice, but for Farah, a corporate tournament ended in a trip to the clinic rather than a trophy.
“I play maybe once a month, but for the company tournament, I was looking forward to making a good impression,” she said. “I was reaching for a high lob, twisted my ankle, and felt something give in my shoulder at the same time. I didn’t even warm up; I just walked from the laptop and onto the court.”
Zickerman notes that the modern “laptop posture” is a recipe for disaster when combined with racquet sports like padel, squash or badminton.
“By being sat for long hours, the shoulders lean forward and the neck extends as we reach forward. The problem here is then that these pectoral muscles get tight, the muscles at the back elongate, the neck extends, and the back and ribs seize up. Then they try and play padel and they cannot reach, or they try and do weights and they cannot quite get there because the posture is not allowing them to move normally.”
The sudden pivoting and twisting, fuelled by adrenaline, often leads to tendon or muscle tears that could have been prevented with proper preparation. As the UAE moves through different seasons, the summer months can even bring gym-related injuries. When the weather gets cooler, the surge in outdoor activities brings a wave of field injuries.
It is critical if they do not want to get injured, and they are quite serious about the journey, the ideal option for them is to come in and be assessed, Zickerman advises.
For someone who has called UAE her home since 1976, Zickerman only recently got a licence to get diagnostics such as ultrasound done at one of her clinics in Dubai, thus keeping the treatment process more self-contained.
Meanwhile, every day many like Eugene Jackson and Farah Mohammed are learning that the sudden exertion — be it the gym or the sporting venues — can prove to be a pain in the neck if not approached correctly.
“We don’t say, ‘stop exercise for three months and you will be fine’. Well, yes, they will be fine, but it does not solve the problem. They go back, it will happen again, because we have not fixed the underlying cause,” Zickerman explains.
Whether you are a professional athlete or a resident trying to shed the festive weight, the lesson is the same: slow and steady wins the race.
