*This post is not intended to take place of medical advice.
If you are like me and love working out, no wait you NEED working out in your life or your day isn’t right, getting injured really stinks. I see a lot of people with knee, shoulder, or back injuries that stop working out until they are totally rehabbed. This begs the question, is it ok to workout while injured. I absolutely think so and I see a lot of benefits to this that benefit the mental and physical side. Here are a few benefits to working out while injured and some tips.
1-Limit your exercise tool box– Yes if you have a shoulder injury you aren’t going to be able to do push ups, burpees, or shoulder press. That is ok, there are plenty of exercises we can do in place of this. Instead of having 200 different exercises at your disposal, you may only have 75-100. Part of the fun can be getting creative with exercises and finding out which ones are doable and which ones aren’t. Recumbent and airdyne bikes can be your friend, especially if its an upper body injury. Walking/running outside can also be an option and is underrated as getting outside in fresh air is great.
2-Extra Blood Flow helps recovery-As we exercise and increase our heart rate, it sends more blood flow to the extremeties. This help flush out the garbage and bring in some new blood to promote recovery. This is similar to how our active recovery workouts promote blood flow to heal sore muscles. Once again the bike will be your friend. Think for shoulder injuries, walking, biking, air squats, step ups, etc.
3-Helps get back to normal activity faster-Obviously if we are sedentary during an injury we have to start at square 1 once we are fully rehabbed. If we continue to exercise during our injury we will have a high likelihood of continuing exercise and “hit the ground running” after full rehab. I have had kids start training 4-5 weeks post op after a surgery, we give them a limited menu of exercise options and gradually work up to regular exercises as their injury heals. I’ve found that this helps people get back to normal activity and their sport faster. It also helps with the next part
4-Helps with your mental health– If you love to workout and all the sudden can’t do it anymore it can be stressful and depressing. Continuing to find a way to exercise releases endorphins and increases energy. If you continue to workout, you generally have more motivation to hit your rehab exercises as well.
5-When you exercise you tend to eat healthier– Being sedentary often comes with boredom and poor eating habits. Not many people you know don’t exercise but eat healthy. Ill give you some time to think of one person you know who does this….Ok time is up. Eating healthy can help the healing process to create an anti inflammatory environment. Healthy fats (think salmon ,avocado, nuts, seeds), fruits, and vegetables may help us heal faster.
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