Too often we see people hurt themselves playing a sport and are told to completely stop what they are doing and replace it with an activity that doesn’t help them get where they want to be. Injuries are common when you’re active, and when you do any form of exercise whether it’s in the gym or for a sport, at some point you will pick up an injury. How you deal with issue will decide how fast you recover and what happens whilst you have the injury. So how do you recover from an injury and how should you approach it in a way that assists your goals?
A WALL IN THE ROAD
You’re driving along and out of nowhere a wall suddenly appears. Your instant reaction is to slam on your breaks and come to a complete stop.
Maybe, you have the “whats the worst that could happen” mindset and you just slam through the wall causing damage to you and things around you.
Or maybe you slow down and find a way around the wall.
Injuries happen quickly, and just like the wall they often appear out of nowhere. When you stop your flow of training, you stop getting the benefits from what you are doing, and if you turn around you end up exactly where you came from.
Smashing through the wall, and continuing on an injury can cause more damage than is necessary and the costs and time to repair could be far more than you can afford.
Instead, we recommend you choose the alternative pathway, sure it may take you a little longer, it may be bumpy and slightly less attractive than the road you were on. However, you are still moving towards your end goal and instead of throwing your body into the wall, you are allowing it to recover the injured area.
WHAT I RECOMMEND
The first thing you should do when you feel an injury is to try and identify what you were doing when the injury happened. From there you need to let your coach or trainer know that you’ve hurt yourself and what movements hurt to do.
Your coach can then implement an alternative movement or program to help you work towards your goal without aggravating your injury.
Booking in to see a physiotherapist will be one of the best choices you make if done correctly. Let them know exactly what you were doing at the time your hurt yourself. This isn’t just saying you were at the gym, but specifically what it was you were doing at the time. If you were squatting, tell them that’s what you were doing.
Ask them what movements you should avoid, and what you could replace them with. Then communicate with your coach or trainer.
A good physio will always offer an alternative based on your goals and your recovery. Too often we see people hurt themselves playing a sport and are told to completely stop what they are doing and replace it with an activity that doesn’t help them get where they want to be. How does that make sense? Sure it’s easy, but it doesn’t help.
The recommendation might take a little longer, maybe you can’t squat for a while, or press overhead, or maybe you need to sit on the sidelines for a few weeks and work on strengthening up your injured body part, but you are protecting your body and still moving towards your end goal.
The slightly more bumpy and longer road may not be the smooth road you want to be on, but you’ve saved yourself from more damage and it sure beats turning back.