How To Overcome Injury
Injury is one of the fastest ways to have your health and fitness de-railed.
But, stuff happens.
…. All of us will at some point face a random injury or have a nagging issues arise that can affect our training.
I’ve already touched on the practical aspect of training around injury on the podcast (episode 16)
So we’re going to be discussing overcoming injury from a mindset perspective.
Because although injury is going to affect the physical aspect of our health and fitness.
Injury can defeat us mentally.
Which can be severely limiting to successfully managing our health and fitness.
Don’t Catastrophise
When injury strikes, It’s easy to be defeatist.
I had a client who recently managed to avoid this trap.
They were putting their shoes on to come out to the gym and tweaked their back.
At this point, It would have been easy to get into a negative headspace.
What have I done?
Have I slipped a disc?
Maybe I should cancel the gym.
But often, we don’t know the extent of an injury in the first few moments.
So… We should do our best to keep our powder dry.
If we get carried away, we can get so de-motivated we can convince ourselves to stop.
… And the injury may not even be as and as we initially think.
Which was the case for my client.
Rather than catastrophise… he was proactive.
Be Proactive
Being proactive with an injury means to take some immediate positive action.
My client was in a fortunate position because he was on his way to the gym.
All he had to do was let me know that he’d tweaked his back.
After some assessment, I was confident we could get him a bit of relief.
So we did some stretches, a bit of self-release work and a few mobility drills.
We also trained in a way that wasn’t going to aggravate his back any further.
By the end of the session, he said he felt at least 80% better.
Which was obviously a result!
But it got me thinking…
If he catastrophised and stayed away from the gym that morning and he wasn’t proactive.
He may have been in pain for even longer!
Speed is an important factor in rehabilitation…
So having a contact, someone who’s knowledgeable about injuries like a coach or a physio that you can contact quickly can be a massive and very practical help.
Obviously this depends on the severity of the injury as you may need immediate medical attention.
But if we’re able to do something immediately to bring relief or speed up our overall recovery, then we could get ourselves back to full health quicker than anticipated.
This was also true of a client of mine who had a full ACL reconstruction.
They were relentless in following the physiotherapy and rehab exercises.
Because of how seriously he took his recovery, he was able to return to leg exercises just 6 weeks after surgery, and most people take 12 weeks.
This has got him back to relatively normal quality of life far quicker than anticipated.
Be Optimistic
Perhaps the most challenging piece of how we view our injuries is in the weeks, months and years going forward.
We may always view that injury as a weakness.
Even if it’s no longer holding us back in day-day activities anymore.
But… I challenge you to be optimistic!
It is possible to turn our weaknesses into strengths!
Even if an injury was severe, we can often find ways to work around it.
(The Paralympics is a standout example of how people are able to conquer physical ailments)
Obviously there is a very realistic physical component to the extent at which we can rehabilitate certain injuries.
But our mindset can limit the extent to which we’re willing to try and rebuild strength after injury.
The problem is, that the most frequent cause of re-injury is weakness.
Unless we’re able to conquer the fear and uncertainty of re-strengthening post-injury, we risk ending up back in the same boat.
Maintaining Momentum
Injuries can be very complex and individual.
But one thing that I’m certain of is the value of maintaining our healthy habits, especially training.
A word of caution is to ensure that injury doesn’t result in us breaking healthy habits.
Even if you’re only able to get to the gym and do a few stretches or some bicep curls…
The value in maintaining the habit is immeasurable for your long term success in health and fitness.
So make sure that you view an injury as a speed bump, not a road block.
It may cause us to slow down, or change direction.
But it should never be a reason to completely Stop.
In Summary…
When injuries crop up.
- Don’t catastrophise. Pause. And let the dust settle.
Be Proactive. Get help. Act quickly to increase recovery time.
Be Optimistic. Our weakness can be turned to strength if we avoid fear.
And do your upmost to view an injury as a temporary challenge, not a permanent problem.