Oh injuries. They happen to the best of us. Unfortunately, many times they’re due to overtraining, which makes it a little harder to deal with mentally. For me, it’s a fine line between pushing myself to my personal limit and pushing too hard. I’m of the mindset “if I did 5 yesterday, I can do 6 today”. In my experience, a little of that can be healthy and beneficial, but too much almost inevitably leads to injury.
Here I am on week 6 of a running hiatus, due to a broken foot. I have to admit that although I’ve taken this time off of running and performing high-impact exercise, I have not slacked off! I think this is the key to surviving any injury and coming through stronger. That said, I’ve compiled my top tips for not letting an injury bring you down.
1. Find Alternative Activities: If you can’t run, bike, if you can’t bike, swim or lift or do yoga. Take this opportunity to try new activities. Not only will this help prevent boredom, you will crosstrain muscles, stay in shape, and maybe even discover a love for something new!
2. Keep Up Your Routine: I always workout first think, before work. Even when I became injured, I stuck to this routine in order to maintain a feeling of normalcy. Even though I was not doing the same activity I was pre-injury, just waking up at the same time and knowing I would work up a great sweat first thing lessened my anxiety.
3. Pump Iron: Lifting weights speeds up your metabolism, promotes good posture, and makes you feel more confident. Find the weight-bearing exercises that don’t aggravate your injury and don’t be afraid to go heavy!
4. Take Your Supplements: Make sure you are getting adequate vitamins and minerals to stimulate healing. For me, I upped my calcium intake to make sure I wasn’t skimping in the essential mineral needed for strong bones.
5. Get Plenty of Rest: Try to log 8-9 hours of sleep on average to promote healing. Much of our healing on a cellular level happens while we snooze, so make a conscious effort to go to bed early.
6. Keep Busy: To take your mind off of your injury and the fact that you can’t do the things you want to be doing physically, by focusing on the things you can do. For me, I’ve been trying to get some organizational projects accomplished around the house that I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time now.
7. Be Patient: Injuries take time to heal, so just try to be patient. Rushing the process or trying the activity again too soon can be a recipe for disaster. Remember that it is just temporary and before you know it you’ll be healthy again.
Prevention is the best medicine. Finding the balance between pushing enough and listening to your body is the key to maintaining a high fitness level while warding off overtraining injuries. Now if I can just remember this when I am healthy again 
{ 3 trackbacks }