Let’s face it, injuries are bound to happen. This is the game of life, and in life, sometimes crap goes south and you get hurt. Does this mean you need to stop training? There’s no clear guideline to this, but there are some steps you should follow.
Things to look at while training injured:
Severity of injury
Effect of training on the injury. (is this valuable, or would time off be more beneficial?)
How much of a wuss are you?
Reasons to keep training:
Hormones from training will help you recover.
Working parts of the body have been proven to strengthen the whole. #science
Maintain some progress/work on a weakness
Keep your routine/sanity.
Let’s go over our guideline. Severity of the injury.. I think you all know where I’m going with this. If you hurt your back, and people across the room are screaming because they can see your vertebral column, you need to go to a hospital. However, if you sprained your ankle, because the mean coach programmed box jumps, you’re in luck.. You can keep training, being respectful of doctors orders and avoiding the pained area by modifying. These modifications should be done in an intelligent way, letting the injured area(s) heal while continuing to train other parts of your body. Your coach should be able to help you with this, but if not, be creative and don’t do things that make your injury worse.
Effect of training on the injury simply means, how will it change where you are in the grand scheme of things. If you tweak something, are sick, or just downright don’t feel good, take a day off, or lighten the weight and work on form. If you go at it hard, when you’re feeling soft, the results will not be what you want.
This is my personal favorite! How much of a wuss are you? No one can answer this but you. Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment. Training injured takes mental toughness, and it isn’t fun. If you have a long term rehab program and can’t use your shoulder, you had better be motivated and committed to blasting your legs, and mid-line. It’s going to be boring, you’re an outcast because you’re not with the group, and no one likes you (just kidding, we do). This is where you can sulk, or be creative, and make your training as smart, and fun as possible. I highly suggest the latter, because it will help you recover, and come back even stronger.
Guys, the reasons to keep training speak for themselves, and I don’t feel the need to cover them anymore than I have. Find yourself, dig deep, and get through your injury. I promise you, if you keep working hard, you’ll be all the better for returning to your normal activity level.
