Injury and Exercise

Injuries are completely unpredictable. It can happen to anyone & anywhere.  No sports are injury-free or rather no movement are injury-free.  Every athlete has gone through some injuries in their life. From laptop jockeys to mobile video gaming to any sports, they all are suspectable to injuries.

Top soccer /tennis players, runners, weightlifters or any sportsperson who are monitored 24X7 by the best coaches and Dr’s in the industry get injured, does that mean their coach was terrible or he dint had an excellent form ???  The answer would be NO. This simplifies injuries are much more than just form.

Depending on the kind of injuries you have, recovery would take that much time. But there are many times one can modify his/her exercise,  training routine or intensity to train while recovering from an injury.

There are multiple reasons for injury to occur. Some of them are mentioned below.

Postural imbalance

Stretching

Poor training form

Poor warm up

Overuse  muscle

Overtraining

Poor recovery

Since we know, there are multiple reasons for injury to happen. Let discuss how we can train around them.

1. Consult your doctor before you start doing anything, find out the root cause and how severe the injury is. How much time would it take to recover?. Till you consult a doctor, please stay away from the internet.
2. Focus on treating the cause instead of just pain.
3. After a few days of rest when you feel better, always start with rehab exercise movements given by your physio. These corrective exercises will be a good warm-up.
4. Stay away from the injured area, if it’s in your lower limb then train your upper body & vice -versa. ( initial few days )
5. Be patient with movements, while you are recovering from an injury you don’t need to do 100 different fancy exercises.  Stick to few & don’t do anything that will aggravate the injury.
6. Once you get a green signal from your Dr to exercise, start slow I would like to repeat start “SLOW”.  Stay away from heavy loads and plyometric movements.
7. Post rest stage,  your first target should be to get the mobility back followed by stability and strength on your injured muscles.
8. Work on building strength in the muscle around the injured muscle; this will speed up the recovery.
9. Plyometric is big no when you are recovering. The goal should be to build good strength in your injured muscle and confidence to perform exercises. Plyometric should only be performed if a specialist supervises you.
10. If specific movements give you discomfort, stop that and do something else which can be performed without any pain.
11. During recovery, focus on your postural imbalances and fix them, this will help to reduce chances of injury in future.
12. Work on unilateral movements to correct imbalances and build strength.
13. Change your training load and volume. Start with full-body exercise.
14. If Injury was due to poor form in some exercise, fix this before you start loading the bar.
15. When dealing with injuries, please don’t get frustrated and do things which will delay your recovery or make it worst.
16. Avoid food which causes inflammation in your body. Focus on your nutrition to speed up the recovery.

Always seek experts guidance to help you to recover from injury. Any program that you plan make Recovery a priority with a good nutrition plan. Be smart and listen to your body.