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So, you have just returned to exercise after having a little time off to rehabilitate and strengthen an injury. For whichever the cause was, you have worked through this injury and your body is almost ready to start again. There are two lines of thoughts that may run through your mind. One, you’re really excited or two you’re a little bit nervous and apprehensive about getting into it again. And rightly so you have injured yourself.

When should you start exercising again and what should you do?

When you return to training there is one thing, I want you to keep in your mind. It is to train where your body is at now. Not where you think it was, and not right down where you think you must start again. It is important to focus on where your body is at the present. You are the best guiding force to informing yourself (& possible personal trainer) of what you feel you can do. This helps in adapting and modifying your exercise regime to suit where you are at now.

If you are approaching training with some caution and nerves. Please be aware that modifying to suit your body is what will happen to begin with. Receiving an injury doesn’t mean that you have to stop and it’s just thrown all away. You will just change & modify as you go continue to build back up again.

On the flip side of nerves & apprehension is to remember to not go a million miles an hour. Take it slow upon returning. The last thing you are probably wanting to do is re-injury yourself and have more time away from moving & exercising.

Either approach will mean we want to ease back into our training. Allowing our injured or our sore body part, to work in steady & not be strained too early, too soon. Build back your strength & confidence in exercise. By doing it this way you can maintain a regular exercise routine & continue injury free.

Who can you go to for help to overcome this injury?

You most likely have been seeing a physiotherapist, a chiro, or some other health professional to help manage this injury. Those exercises, those stretches, the tips, the tricks, and various ways the health professionals have been working with you. Continue them. By doing them, it will build up your comfort levels & confidence to move again. Carrying over into a normal exercise routine becomes a clearer path when building our confidence again.  Remember the key here is to not stop in the earliest of days when injury.

 

Use the injury as a learning experience?

Now let’s fast forward a little bit where you have been training and you have learnt how to modify exercises. You have eased your way in, and you are heading back to a point where you’re feeling strong again. I want you to take a step back and re-evaluate how the rest of your body is going. Any form of injury or niggling pain most likely came from overstraining an area of our body. Whether it is a joint or a muscle that has been overdone at that point in time. Take a step back, reflect on how you are traveling, and do anything that can pre-habilitate. Understand what your body feels like at rest & during/after exercise. Are there areas that building and getting sore….If so do the work before it results in an injury.