How to train with an Injury?

First of all, what do I mean by an injury? An injury can be major or minor. A broken leg is a major injury and aching lower back is a minor injury. Most injuries are repaired by strengthening the affected and connected areas. Of course if you have a broken leg you will start with rest but quit soon you are encouraged to do some sort of movement. You need movement to prevent loss of mobility and encourage blood flow into the area for a better healing process. Then you will have further physiotherapy to work on getting back to full range of movement. The next is, get the muscles back to working properly. After that you most likely are set off on your own and here is where most people struggle. And often wonder if they can train with an injury. 

You might also have had a bad lower back or a knee that bothers you from time to time?. Perhaps you avoid doing certain exercises or activities because of it. You might have seen a physio about it but you are potentially still stuck in that phase where it can still bother you. And dont want to make it worse again.

How to manage training and injuries?

This is such a big and broad topic but I will stick to some basics when training with an injury. The main thing is to manage the intensity of an exercise or an activity. Eg let say you have bad knees, doing a full range squat is not something you feel comfortable with. An alternative would be to do a shallow squat, as you get stronger you can start going lower. If that is not an option you can stick with the shallow squat but add resistance to it. That might be a better way for you to progress. Same principle can be applied to various exercises. 

You might also have to work on activating and strengthening other leg muscles to take the pressure of the knee. How to train with an injury is all about managing symptoms. Addressing areas that needs work to help with symptoms.

Most injuries are healed by strengthening the tendons and muscles. There is a reason why physios get you to do all sorts of exercises and they should get done.

Do you have to be symptom free to train with an injury?

With those short examples the sum up is that when I train my clients I look at what range of motion they can tolerate. What angles do they tolerate, are they activating the right muscles not to aggravate and put to much pressure on the injured area. How much load/resistance can they tolerate and last but not least how how do they feel the day after a session. If they feel that something has been aggravated then how much? and how quick do they recover? 

Hope this gives some insight into managing injuries and that often you don’t need to exercise or avoid training the injured area most of the time it can be managed and you will get some improvement.