How to Fight the Blues When You Have an Exercise Injury

An exercise Injury always seems to hit just when you find your workout groove. Whether you are training for a half-marathon, revving up your cross-fit game or finally not feeling ridiculously sore from every barre class, our bodies sometimes can’t handle the increased tempo at moments when our minds are eager for more.

As someone who has luckily not been plagued with injury, when I do get injured it puts a real damper on my mood. I have to actively remind myself not to push through the pain and make it worse.

When injury strikes and you find you can’t continue with your regular exercise regime, here are some action steps to cope:

1. Determine the Source of the Pain

When you’re injured, it can be very tempting to ignore the pain and push through. However, this is one of the worst things you could do for your long-term body wellness and physical strength. It is important to rest the site of the injury, but at the same not let all your hard work disappear. In order to keep exercising, determine the source of the pain and figure out what’s causing it.

Refer to your physician or chiropractor to get help with this too. Once the source of the pain is determined, you can realize what exercises are safe for your body and adjust accordingly.

Knowing what specifically is causing our pain can improve our mentality about being injured. It helps us devise an action plan for getting better, rather than just wishing it would go away.

2. Find a Physical Therapist

While you’re adjusting your workouts to avoid overworking your injury spot, it is also important to remember to strengthen the areas of weakness or tightness that caused the injury in the first place. Physical therapy can be just as much of a workout as hitting up your regular gym moves.

A physical therapist can put together an action plan for you to follow. Use their help to determine how long it might before you can resume your normal exercise regime.

3. Explore New Fitness Opportunities

Focus on the positives: this is an opportunity to test out new workouts! If shin splints have forced you to hang up the running shoes for a while, maybe try a spin class or the ultra-luxury aqua water-cycling. If barre has got your hip flexors in knots, time for some relaxed yoga to strengthen and stretch the joints.

Exploring new fitness types will not only teach you something new, it will help strengthen other muscles you might have been ignoring with your previous routine. Variety is your best friend!

4. Put Your Recovery on the Calendar

The toughest part of injury – besides the forced seat on the sidelines – is the longing to get back to your regular routine. If your day doesn’t feel quite right until you’ve done your regular 4-mile loop or done your usual yoga class, it’s easy to start to feel unsettled and not like yourself. But injuries don’t last forever. Before you know it you’ll be back doing what you love.

Mark on your calendar the last time you worked out the body part that is ailing you and assess each week how it’s feeling. Visually assessing how long it’s been and estimating how long it will take to get better will help you calm your panic about getting behind all your non-injured friends.

5. Take Your Recovery Slowly

Once the pain is gone, don’t jump back in right away. Build up your strength slowly to regain muscle you lost while resting.

Taking the time to rest from the injury, only to jump back in too fast is like binge eating on a tray of Oreos after doing Whole30 perfectly for a month. You won’t feel very good, and you won’t be doing your body any favors. Tread lightly, tread slowly.