It’s the weekend. You’ve put in a long, hard week and haven’t had time to exercise. So, you devote the weekend to catching up. But that plan could backfire on you.

“With the great weather that we have in Southwest Florida, we see a lot of children as well as weekend athletes,” says Dr. Alan Tannenbaum, an internal medicine physician on the medical staff of Lee Memorial Health System.

He says sometimes weekend workout warriors tend to overdo it. “For the people that go out on the weekend and are out of shape try to do what they like to do when they were younger and then of course end up with muscle spasms, lower back strain,” he adds.

If the weekend is the only time you can be active, he suggests setting some gametime rules. “I think if weekend athletes know, ‘hey, they’re out of shape, they’re in their 40s, 50s, 60s and not conditioned well like a regular athlete’, then playing an entire game of nine innings or playing in a football game for two hours may be too much,“ explains Dr. Tannenbaum.

The most common weekend injuries? Lower back pain due to a golf game, torn ligaments from a weekend jog and fractures from contact sports.

It’s important to see a doctor if you do suffer an injury on the weekend. It’s better to get it treated earlier rather than later.