Working out with an injury

We've all experienced it. Whether you're a casual weightlifter or an experienced weight maniac, we've all been sidelined with an injury before. I've had my share of injuries when I was younger. Back then, I lay off the weights for 2-3 weeks and get right back to it. The wonders of a young body. Well, during the time I was doing mainly mini-workouts, I managed to injure my right shoulder (which I've injured twice before). The road to recovery this time was long and quite insightful.

First thing I did after the injury was go in denial. I wrote off the injury as general tightness. I continued with my mini-workouts, which at the time was a day of pushups alternated with a day of pullups during the work week. I also did some dumbbell workouts at home that targeted the shoulder (raises, shoulder presses, etc.). When I started feeling discomfort during the dumbbell work, I started to realize I had an injury. I took out the weights, but still continued the pushups and pullups. But soon I started feeling discomfort in everyday movements.

During this time, the injury confused me. It was unlike anything I've experienced. There wasn't any real pain. It it didn't feel like a strain, and I couldn't really remember what caused it. I remembered tightness, but that was it. I tried various stretches to see if I could target the muscle, but couldn't find a stretch that worked. Finally, I decided that maybe it was a rotator cuff injury. I put weights back into my workout program, but kept them at 5 lbs (by this time, that was all I could lift with my shoulders anyway). I added rotator cuff exercises to strengthen the rotator cuff. I went on a program that alternated chest/triceps with back/biceps/shoulders. Then one day I heard my shoulder move during an exercise. It sounded like the ball of my humerus moving in the shoulder socket. Something was definitely wrong.

As bad as things sounded, my doctor had already reassured me that things seemed fine. I even took a week off as suggested. But after some more thinking and reevaluation of my workout, I determined that I was overworking my shoulders. I wasn't giving it enough rest for it to recover. From there I changed my entire weight program. I then started basically from scratch. All my exercises from chest to back to shoulders to arms now were set strictly to 5 lb dumbbells. I focused on sets and started with 8 reps each, focusing very much on form.

I realized that this injury was somewhat of a blessing in disguise, because I lost most of my weight during this recovery/"rehab" period. I would increase 1-2 reps every week until I hit 15 reps. Then I increased weights by 5 lbs per dumbbell and start at 8 reps again. I slowly rebuilt my strength and range of motion one small step at a time. It was a painstakingly long process before I hit 20 lbs again. But the focus on form and slower reps to avoid jerking the shoulder really helped. I'm up to 30 lb dumbbells and I'm leaner than ever with my cardio workouts.

So what did I learn from this injury and the recovery? A lot. If you find yourself injured, do this:

-RICE. If you catch the injury early, do the traditional RICE method. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. Forty-eight hours should be good.

-Rest. By all means, don't be stubborn or go into denial. If it's not soreness, rest. Depending on how fast your body recovers, this can be as short as 2 weeks or 8 weeks. And when I mean rest, it means nothing. If it's an upper body injury, don't do any upper body workouts. Believe it or not, a seemingly unrelated exercise is still somewhat tied to the injured area. So do more cardio and lower body exercises. The same applies vice-versa with a lower body injury.

-Keep moving. While resting, don't immobilize the injured area. Try to mimic the exercise motions without any weight. Try to slowly increase range of motion if that has been limited. Get the blood moving to help speed recovery. Carefully stretch the area regularly.

-Take anti-inflammatories as needed, especially right after the injury. I don't really believe in this as I like to keep aware of what might be hurting so I don't do things to hurt it more. I rarely take pain medication, and when I do, it's usually for a headache. But if it helps during the early stages of the injury, go for it.

-Ease back into action. When you're ready to get back to action, start slowly and lightly. Light weights might seem really silly, but you don't want to risk re-injury. Aim for higher reps, while keeping overall stress low. Be strict with your form. This is the perfect opportunity to correct any bad mistakes and habits you might have had. Keep at it until you're back where you were before injury. It's worth it to focus on neglected areas before.


So that's it for my injury tips. One other thing you might want to keep in mind is to lower your calorie intake. Since you might not be working out at your peak, this will help keep your weight gain down. Other than that, good luck!