Every athlete's worse nightmare is getting injured. However, it's not the end of the world and we can adapt to work around the injury. When training around an injury, it's important to listen to your body and not push through pain. Modify your exercises to avoid putting stress on the injured area, and focus on exercises that are safe and won't exacerbate your injury.
Training around an injury
- Train the non-injured limbs - In the case of single limb injuries, training one side of your body can help preserve muscle and strength in the other side of your body
- Switch to machines - Machines guide your movements, so you don’t have to worry about stabilizing the load. Most also provide lower back support, which will be welcome if you are suffering from back pain.
- Reduce range of movement - You can preserve strength and mass while saving your muscles and joints from unnecessary stress by purposely reducing your range of motion.
Preventative measures
- Nutrition - some injuires may be due to a lack of nutrition. The healing process can also be accelerated by adequet nutrition and maintaining a healthy lifestyle
- Warm up properly - If you place tension on a cold muscle, you increase your risk of injury to that muscle. By gradually raise the temperature of the muscle and then slowly stretch it out with static stretching you will help relax and elongate the muscle, and place it in an injury-resistant state