How to not let an injury stop you from exercising

Suffering from an injury when you are in a good exercise routine can be a big blow – especially if you’re feeling great from regular exercise, eating healthy and so on. Depending on the injury, it might mean you have to slow down on exercising or even stop completely for a period of time. If this happens to you, it’s important not to let yourself feel overwhelmed.

Here we have a plan to help you get back in your trainer as soon as possible.

1: Firstly, always consult with your doctor before exercising if you have an injury. Explain the nature of fitness that you do and see if you are able to perform those exercises.

2: If you’re able to do most exercises, then do what you can. Take it slow and listen to your body in terms of when you need to back off. Depending on the injury you can either sit an exercise and moderate the exercises. If you need any help with a suggestion to an adaption. Then please use the Ask Austin Live section on the website.

3: If you have an injury when you start exercising then be aware that it can sometimes help to work up that area or the muscles around it. Again consult with your doctor first. He or she will usually give you a better understanding of how best to recover from an injury. But once given the green light start out slow! Don’t overtrain the area, give it time and be patient with yourself and the body area. By putting too much pressure on to the sore area you might end up damaging it, but if you give it time, it might end up becoming stronger than before.

4: Try something new! If you’ve got an injury that doesn’t allow you to work out the way you usually do, try and keep an open mind and think of alternative workouts you would like to try out. You might usually go running outside – maybe you can so cycling or rowing outside instead. Or you like dancing, maybe you can do water aerobics or antigravity yoga instead? Try not to think of it as an obstacle but rather a new opportunity instead.

5: The best defence is prevention so in order to avoid injuries make sure that you warm up your body properly before starting your exercising routine. Again, be realistic and listen to your body and the level it is on. Don’t start outputting more pressure on yourself than you can take as that can not only course injury. But also be demotivating and confidence lowering. Better give yourself an experience of success and spend longer reaching your goal safely.

6: To sum it all up: Consult with your doctor, remember to warm up, give yourself time, try to continue exercising routine yet do adaptions if possible, listen to your body (exercising should never be painful, only challenging), don’t over-train, keep an open mind and try to see possibilities rather than obstacles.

We hope that this is helpful, but if you need any help do let us know! We are only a phone call or a little post on the community chat away.