What to do when injured?
What to do when injured
Injuries can be frustrating and it can make you want to give up on your current fitness goals, however, it is important to understand the question you need to ask yourself: "Why am I getting hurt?"
Your first response is usually “I don’t know”.
Let’s clear up a few things before we get started.
Most, if not all, have some underlying deficiency that may or may not be causing pain or discomfort.
It was either a sport related injury, long term improper movement or maybe you slipped and fell, it hurt, but you recovered and life goes on. Eventually that pain may or may not go away, what if it doesn’t?
Another first instinct is to go to the doctor, which is always a smart decision.
Too often the recommendation is "take some medicine to help with the pain until it goes away".
This is true but your pain will go away eventually unless you seriously injured yourself.
I know we have some Doctors reading this. We are not trying to slam any Doctors, but we recommend seeing a specialist. A Chiropractor, Physical Therapist or Orthopedic specialist. Someone who will dive in a bit deeper to the underlying condition/cause.
Without specific help, there’s a higher chance that your pain will come back.
Example:
November last year you hurt yourself slipping on ice and it took two to three weeks for you to recover.
Hips hurt, butt hurt, and hands/wrist hurt from trying to catch yourself. Still you recovered and you feel completely normal now.
Fast forward and you decide it’s time to hit up the gym and get fit!
Weeks to months go by and you are crushing it! You do some Kettlebell swings with, of course impeccable form, and bam....just like that your back goes out.
Frustrating for sure.
Was it the fall? Was it from having a desk job? Was it picking up the kids incorrectly all those years?
Take a deep breath because we are here to help.
First things first, use the Injury Management Flow Chart from our friends at Active Life. This will give you a great outline as to what to do with your current situation.
After the Chart above, what is the answer to "What to do if injured?" = talk to your coach, they are a valuable tool in your tool box!
The real work starts once pain goes away and normal range of motion comes back (which is where the Chiropractors and PT's come in).
Just working out nowadays may not help, we need to be smart about how we attack our deficiencies so that we can live a long and healthy life.
We will help build a plan of attack which will focus on regaining proper mobility or correcting strength imbalances, causing certain areas or muscles to be overworked. Sometimes we simply help modify workouts to keep your from perpetuating the injury.
We want to help optimally recover so that way this doesn’t happen again. While we can’t unfortunately guarantee to take your pain away, we certainly want to help reduce it.
Make no doubt about it, this can be a long road to recovery and you have to be willing to work hard. We are here to help.
Coach Chris