By Claudel Leveille
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
Injuries. Everyone hates them. It would be great if we were indestructible machines that never got tired, never got hurt, and got progressively faster and stronger without any limitations. How amazing would that be? Unfortunately, the reality is that virtually everyone gets injured at one point or another in life with or without being a gym patron. Nonetheless, any serious gym-goers’ worst nightmare is sustaining an injury. Just the word itself is enough to make any fitness enthusiast cringe. Injuries are annoying and can be mentally draining because they may stall your progress and prevent you from doing certain activities that you enjoy. Not to mention that some injuries can be extremely painful and debilitating…
Exercising and getting in shape is the key to great health. We all know that right. But ironically, the more active you are, the higher the odds become that you might get injured. (The 50 year old guy that you know who stays at home all day eating Little Debbie and guzzling down several cans of Pepsi never complains about a sprained wrist! Even though he does have..high blood pressure…and diabetes…) Unfortunately, that’s just how the game works. Sadly, I have never been one of the lucky ones when it comes to the gym. Although I take many precautions and have never exercised in a haphazard way, I have been injured several times over the past 10-12 years of serious lifting. After the initial disappointment that naturally accompanies any setback, each injury has been a humbling and learning experience that has allowed me to return better, wiser, stronger, and more in tune with my body’s strengths and limitations.
Perspective is very important when you get hurt. An injury can either make you stronger, or it can literally and figuratively break you down. My advice is that if you get injured, do not lose hope. It is easier said than done and I have experienced many a dark day. Still, try to take inspiration from other people who are dealing with even tougher situations. For example, I have encountered people in wheelchairs or with missing limbs working out despite their extreme limitations. Witnessing the strength of those incredible individuals has allowed me to remain positive even when I am dealing with an annoying injury. While dealing with an injury, it is an ideal time to strategize and evaluate your program to figure out the best way to come back stronger and better than before.
So if you do happen to get injured while working out, there are some steps to take that can help to avoid a complete loss of gym progress and uplift your mental well-being. Below I offer 8 pieces of advice that can help you to navigate your way through gym-related injuries and how you can continue to stay/get in shape even when you are not 100%.
1) Perform an initial assessment of the injury and try to determine the origin If you get injured suddenly, like twisting your knee while playing basketball, then you know that you made an awkward movement that caused you to get injured. That is simple enough. On the other hand, if you notice a pain in your body that wasn’t there before, and no traumatic event caused that pain, then you should examine whether there might be a particular movement that caused it. For example, if you are doing bicep curls, and you notice a sharp pain in your bicep, it is possible that the curling movement is not agreeing with you at the moment. Perhaps you developed tendonitis, or some other sports injury. In this case, and in ones similar to it, simply stop performing the movement immediately before further damage is done.
2) Apply basic RICE principles when you first notice an injury Regardless of whether you suffered from an acute injury like twisting your ankle while jumping, or if you are feeling the ramifications of a gradual-onset injury like tendonitis or arthritis, you should definitely try to treat the issue as soon as possible. The RICE technique is one of the most basic therapeutic methods to employ after you sustain a musculoskeletal injury. RICE stands for: Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. The last thing that you want to do is further injure yourself by aggravating the injured region.The RICE method can help to accelerate the healing process and protect you from worsening the problem. Resting the area is absolutely essential. You need to leave the injured region alone for a while, especially if it hurts without applying any external weight. If you are experiencing pain, ice can help with inflammation, and depending on the severity of the injury, repeated treatments with ice might be necessary. Compression and elevation can help to alleviate swelling. These techniques are often used in situations like acute sprains and strains in areas like the knees, elbows, and ankles.
3) Seek medical advice if you do not think you can manage the problem on your own (If you are sure that you can manage the problem on your own, then you can skip right ahead to step 4). Depending on the type of injury that you have, you might not have any idea what to do about it. After making sure that you stay away from re-injuring yourself, you should definitely speak to a medical professional who might give you important information about how you should address the injury. For example, a few years ago I had a left rear deltoid injury that appeared to be ligament related (after I consulted a physical therapist). After realizing that I had an injury, I went to see a physical therapist. After speaking to the therapist, we discussed and evaluated my workout routine and determined that I was probably doing too many explosive pull-ups. Even though it pained me to do so, I stayed away from pull-ups for an extended period of time. It was the right thing to do.
4) Accept that you are injured and start accepting things will probably have to change when you return Getting injured can be absolutely devastating, especially if you had been making amazing progress in the gym. An injury can be a huge buzzkill, and some people give up on their fitness goals because they get hurt. However, an injury can actually be a tool with which you can evaluate your weaknesses and become mentally stronger. Once you determine what might have caused your injury, you need to accept that your body inevitably reached its limit.
Next, you want to find any way possible to strengthen the injured area and correct any mistakes that you had been making prior to the injury. For example, I had a left quadriceps injury about 2 years ago that I gradually developed from doing one-legged (pistol) squats. One day, I noticed a strange sensation in my left leg while performing pistol squats and immediately recognized that something wasn’t right.
After evaluating the situation, I realized that because my left leg was a bit weaker than my right, I wasn’t descending evenly when I performed the movement on my left leg. This resulted in excess stress on the lower part of my quadricep and probably caused the injury. After I figured that out, instead of becoming depressed, I spent time working on strengthening my left leg by doing seated leg presses with one leg at a time, and by making steady progress on Barbell Bulgarian Squats, a movement that I wanted to get better at. I also visited a physical therapist who gave me some useful stretches to perform on my own.
Lastly, I used Youtube to find additional lower body injury prevention/rehabilitation drills to perform. After a few months, my lower body became a bit more mobile and flexible, and I was eventually able to perform pistol squats again, this time with better form. Learning from my mistakes and spending time working on other aspects of my fitness while I was injured helped me to avoid having a re-occurrence of the problem and strengthened my overall mindset. Basically, an injury can be an opportunity to evaluate if your routine is going to help or harm you, to work on different moves that you might not be good at, to shore up weak points, and to emerge as a better overall lifter. So keep that in mind if you get hurt.
5) Try to find alternative exercises for the body part that may still be able to assist you in your fitness goals Maybe you are in a situation that you have an injury, but that body part is absolutely crucial to whatever your goals at the moment are. For example, if you have a back injury, but you are a competitive bodybuilder, you obviously still want to train your back. The main thing to do is make sure that your injury begins to heal before you start trying alternative exercises. Give yourself a few days, maybe even one week or more (depending on the severity and nature of the injury) to truly determine if you can stimulate the area in any way. If you can, it might take a bit of trial and error, but find exercises that you can do that will target the area in a way that minimizes pain and that strengthen the region while promoting blood flow for recovery.
Blood circulation is one of the keys to recovery, and if you have an injury, getting blood to the region will supply nutrients and other helpful materials that can help that area to heal. As an anecdote, a few years ago, I had a mysterious pectoral injury that hurt close to where my armpit meets my upper chest. After taking a few days off and assessing the severity of my injury, I determined that the only movements that triggered pain in the region were dips and incline seated machine chest presses. I was still able to do exercises such as pushups, dumbbell flyes, dumbbell presses, and pectoral flyes to stimulate my chest muscles. None of those exercises hurt, and I was glad that I was still able to workout effectively even though I was nursing an injury that took several weeks to heal.
6) Learn from your mistakes! If you get hurt, make sure that as you heal that you come to an understanding of why you might have gotten injured in the first place and take the requisite steps to prevent future mishaps. Over the years, I have found several excellent resources that I use for injury prevention. I list a few of them below. Of course, even with all the knowledge and experience that I have acquired, I have not been completely injury free. Again, while the human body is amazing in many ways, it is not indestructible. Therefore, it will inevitably experience wear and tear, especially among individuals who are regularly physically active.
Despite this reality, you should try your best to exercise in an intelligent way. By doing so, you will increase your chances of avoiding catastrophic injuries, and you will be able to continue to workout effectively even while dealing with minor/ nagging injuries that might try to thwart your efforts.
Photo by Victor Freitas from Pexels
7) Always Ease Your Way Back Into Your Full Routine Always ease your way back into the swing of things. After you finally heal, you might become overzealous and end up re-injuring yourself or even injuring a different body part. I’ve certainly done that in the past, and it is one of the worst feelings in the world. There have been a few instances in my lifting career when I believed that I was completely healed, and then proceeded to test the formerly injured region at maximum effort, only to notice the same pain/discomfort again. The best thing to do is to exercise caution. For instance, if you used to curl 50 pound dumbbells before sustaining a biceps injury, then when you first return to doing curls, work with a far lighter weight, such as 15 pounds. Naturally, your ego will be screaming at you to stop being pathetic and grab the “50’s”, but is it really worth getting hurt again and taking more time away from accomplishing your goals? Probably not.
8) Realize that in the future another injury of a different nature may occur If you are the type of person who works out 4-5 times a week almost every week of the year over several years or decades, and even plays a sport or two on the side, it is safe to say that you will probably get injured more than just once. With that being said, it is imperative to stay aware that even with a smart program and full injury recovery, your body is completely unpredictable and a setback may occur when you least expect it. Keeping that in mind, if a setback does happen then it is less likely that it would come as a total shock that would completely derail you from your fitness goals. You would understand that you will have to find a way around it, just as you may have done in the past and may have to do again in the future. It is important to keep that mindset as the years of lifting and wear and tear on the body add up. Imagine spending 40+ years consistently in the gym without dealing with any aches, pains, or injuries? Certainly only an exceedingly small handful of people can even make that claim.
List of Helpful Resources https://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-improve-thoracic-spine-mobility/#axzz37vHtbtTv https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/how-to-maintain-muscle/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445177/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGSc-EUlyrQ&list=PLzdTbq_KtHGTcrXKJYPxX51F6HUXbYvls&index=134&t=0s (Tapp Brothers Parkour Style Warmup) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pANUC5cAinQ&list=PLzdTbq_KtHGTcrXKJYPxX51F6HUXbYvls&index=115&t=0s (Bodybuilding.com Training Through Injury Tips) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1oplii_WkM&list=PLzdTbq_KtHGTcrXKJYPxX51F6HUXbYvls&index=61&t=0s (Matt Ogus video on Proper Squat)
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