Training is going well, everything is on track. One day a small niggle appears, nothing major. Over time it progresses and becomes a consistent factor of each session and everyday life. Aleernatively, pushing through your fitness one day and something tweaks. Session is derailed. Unfortunately, whilst we take every step to minimise the occurence of injures, they can and do happen. However, they don’t have to completely scupper your progress. Here’s a checklist to help you manage yourself and your fitness training with injury.
Disclaimer: As highly experienced personal trainers / strength & conditioning coaches in Ascot, we ARE NOT medically trained. The diagnosis of, and treatment of, injury should be guided by medically trained professionals. You should seek guidance from a doctor or qualified physio.
Fitness training with injury is a head game
The psychology of injury is huge. Injuries can prevent you performing certain movements and activities. This in itself is highly frustrating. Firstly, know that it’s normal to feel upset and frustrated when injured. The key is accepting it and not letting the emotions take over. Your injury will get better. Your training will get back on track. How long this take will vary. The type and extent of injury, rehab and lifestyle factors will all play a part. At NK Fitness we always encourage people to ‘get smart’ when it comes to niggles and injuries. Managing your headspace during injury is key.
Movement is medicine and Motion is lotion
These are nice catchy phrases. But they also ring true. More often than not you don’t need to stop moving when injured. Too often we see people stop physical activity altogether. Rather than stopped altogether, training should be modified if possible. There will always be something that you can do. This helps keep you sane at the same time as recovering from the injury. At NK Fitness we’ve used fitness training with injury as an opportunity to work on elements of conditioning that sometimes get neglected. Many professional and elite athletes dont get opportunity to work on some elements of fitness. Sime injuries can free up valuable training time for other aspects of health and fitness.
What to do when fitness training with injury
As mentioned earlier we are not medical. What follows is a quick summary of some of the basic steps that we take when clients report niggles or injuries. It’s not an exhaustive list of options but we find that it works in principle for us during our one to one personal training sessions.
- Identify the movements that cause irritation. Stop performing them in the way that causes irritation.
- Can the movement be modified to cease irritation? Reduce the weight, reduce the range of motion or both.
- If modified movements can be performed, stop doing them if perceived level of discomfort reaches 5 out of 10 or is increasing during reps and sets.
- Focus on other movements and modalities of training