A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Back to Exercising After an Injury
For anyone who loves to exercise – be it jogging each morning before work, heading to the gym at lunchtime, or swimming each evening before heading home- an injury can be a total and complete nightmare, especially if you’re in training for an event. Getting injured means lost time working out, having to sit out of your favourite exercise classes or sports matches, and feeling totally and completely defeated. You feel disheartened and upset and can even end up losing your motivation because of it.
However, that doesn’t have to be the case. If you’re proactive about your recovery, sometimes an injury can make you even more determined to meet your fitness goals and get into the best shape of your life. If you want to ensure that, after an injury, you can return to working out as soon as possible, take note of the steps below to get back to exercising.
Remember, the worst thing you can do is rush the process, as doing so may make your injury even worse and lengthen the healing time. Find a doctor who specialises in sports recovery and listen to their advice carefully to avoid exacerbating the problem.
Step 1: Give yourself time to rest and recuperate
When you’ve suffered a serious sports injury, the most important thing is to give yourself time to rest and recuperate. Rushing the healing process is a big no-no and not something that you want to do. It might be annoying being stuck resting all of the time, unable to go for a run or pump some iron, but you need to give your body time to heal.
If you’re on bed rest, the chances are you’re going out of your mind with boredom, so the best thing to do is to find something to distract you from your situation; this could be finding a new book to read, looking for a Netflix series to binge on, or choosing a new hobby, such as adult colouring or crocheting, to keep yourself busy. Rest really is the best healer, so make sure to give yourself adequate time to rest and recuperate after an injury, speeding up the healing process.
Step 2: Do as your doctor says
If your doctor has told you not to walk further than a few yards on your sprained ankle, then don’t. If you’ve been told to spend as much time as possible with your leg elevated, do it. If you’ve been told not to use your arm for anything for at least four weeks, take note. In some cases, the doctor will use strict medication and surgical alternatives to cure you. Some surgeries will require you to stay under strict observation to get back on your feet at the earliest.
What’s important to understand is that your doctor wouldn’t tell you to do something unless it was necessary, so make sure to listen to whatever they say. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you know best because the truth is, no matter how much you want to believe that you do, you don’t. The consequences of not listening to your doctor range from having a longer healing period to doing permanent damage, so ask yourself, is it really worth disregarding what your doctor says?
Step 3: See a physiotherapist
The chances are that, whatever your injury, your doctor has recommended you see a physiotherapist to help speed up your recovery. Whether you’ve broken a bone, torn a muscle, or damaged a joint, physiotherapy can help strengthen the affected area and reduce your recovery time. So it’s definitely worth seeing a specialist so you can get back to doing what you love more quickly.
Physiotherapy works by your physiotherapist assessing your injury and identifying ways to help you strengthen the affected area. This may be via manipulation of the bones or muscles – this doesn’t tend to hurt, so don’t panic – or via exercise to help strengthen the affected area. A physiotherapist can also advise you on the steps to take when starting to exercise again and help you determine when you’re ready to do so.
Step 4: Start slowly
Even once you’ve got approval from your doctor or physiotherapist to start exercising again, it’s important to start slowly. You can’t expect to be able to pick up where you left off before suffering a serious sports injury – it will take time to get back to where you were before, and it’s important to understand that.
It’s best to work with your doctor or physio to develop a workout plan that highlights what you can and cannot do. For example, say you used to run five miles at a fast pace; it may be recommended that you start by power walking a shorter distance to strengthen your injured area. Then, slowly, you begin jogging over a short distance, building up your speed, stamina, and strength over time until you get back to where you were before – this could take weeks or even months, and it’s important to realise that.
Step 5: Fuel your body
After an injury, the affected area will always be slightly weaker than it was before, which is why it’s so important to ensure that you are getting all of the vitamins and nutrients that your body needs. You see, by fueling your body with the right foods, you can help strengthen the injured area, making it less prone to secondary problems. As well as eating a healthy, clean diet and drinking plenty of water – at least two litres a day- it’s also important to look into the different supplements that you could take to help strengthen your joints. For this, supplements like glucosamine, MSM and chondroitin are good.
Getting back to exercising after an injury isn’t always easy; it can be tiring, stressful, and at times completely and utterly frustrating, especially when you have a long recovery period, but if you take note of the tips above, you can get back to where you were before, fitness-wise.
