Training and recovery after injury
You may or may not know that I’m a keen recreational road cyclist, having started cycling again 12 years ago to improve my fitness and manage my weight. Recently, I took the bike out on a routine ride taking roads I’ve used hundreds of times. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t realise how this one might turn out!
Around 7 miles in I woke up covered in blood, with helpful and concerned locals stood over me, and the sound of an approaching ambulance. Scarily I was unconscious and have no memory of the incident, other than waking up afterwards, which may be a blessing. A day spent in A&E in considerable pain discovering I had a fractured eye socket, fractured cheekbone, and multiple fractured ribs, sprained hand, and polenty of stitches.
Obviously this resulted in a total ban on lifting weights or performing high impact exercise or contact sports for 6-8 weeks, which for me was devastating news after only just last year recovering from a previous major surgery. The easy route would be to think “well, I’ll just sit about and wait it out then”, and quite understandably I can see why injury of this kind can trigger many people to let their overall health and fitness slip away, losing strength and falling into a poor diet.
But here’s the thing with post injury recovery…
What if you reframe that mindset telling you about all the stuff you can’t do? What if you think “OK, so this is my situation! What CAN I do?” instead, and build a path forwards.
Here’s my formula:
In this instance my upper body is out of action and jumping around is a no no. So I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to focus on moving more; movements like bodyweight lunges, squats, Cossack squats, split squats, calf raises, standing hip thrusts against resistance bands, box steps forward and side ways. All these movements will build endurance and a solid foundation for when I can return to weighted exercise.
Using an exercise bike to mitigate any risk of falling injuries, outdoor walks to get fresh air and clear the mind whilst burning a few low impact calories.
Counting calories and maintaining a healthy macro split to slow any loss of muscle tissue during recovery.
The funny part is that I kind of enjoy the sensation of movement again, after a long period of strength training being my main focus, and my cardio fitness is actually improving at the same time.
So no, you can’t train in the same way that you always have, but you can still train smart and work your body in the best available way that’s in line with your recovery.
You could for example have a foot injury or knee injury, but you could still effectively work your core and upper body to help mitigate and offset your injury and loss of strength in the legs and hips (you may even still be able to work your hips too).
It’s very easy to look at injury and think what you can’t do - but what if you don’t?
Get in touch if you are working around an injury and need some inspiration.
