How do you stay fit when injured? Exercise is always a must for optimal physical health. However, an injury can severely limit our mobility and stop us from performing our exercise routines. Whether it’s due to an awkward movement, overexertion or a sports accident, an injury can make you stop exercising for a while.
That doesn’t have to be the case though because some forms of exercise can still be done even while you’re on the road to recovery. The key here is to choose the right types of exercise and seek professional advice from physiotherapists and medical professionals. You can ask questions and seek guidance on how you can stay fit even if it seems difficult in your current condition.
About injuries and downtime
Often we associate injuries with lots of downtime. After all, an injury can severely limit our movements whether the injury is in a single joint or a set of bones in the knees, hands, back, neck and feet. The dislocation of bones and joints as well as the tearing of muscle fibres can be very painful which is why exercising can be really frightening or discouraging for many.
Of course, intensive exercises will be out of the list if you’re still fresh in the injury or you’re just beginning to recover. Your body needs to first focus on recovery and you don’t want to start again from scratch if you injure yourself again or make matters worse. There will be downtimes and you’ll be forced to take it slow and light. But you can still get productive during recovery times through light exercise and perhaps exploring other activities and hobbies (e.g. reading books, watching meaningful documentaries, some gardening tasks that are not too demanding).
Should you workout when injured?
You don’t want to make matters worse and you don’t want to add another injury to your body. However, you know you still have to exercise because it’s vital to physical and even mental health. What should you do then?
Take note that exercise can be incorporated into recovery. This means in many cases, exercise can be also important to help heal the injured area and perhaps speed up the recovery and correct the physical errors. This exercise-based rehabilitation can even help prevent future occurrences of injuries and joint pains.
Corrective and preventive exercises though should be under the guidance of qualified physiotherapists. The form and alignment should always be correct so that your bones, muscles and joints won’t be under unnecessary and harmful strain. Even for exercises that don’t directly relate to the injured area, professional guidance is a great help to ensure you won’t make matters worse and instead ensure a satisfactory outcome. Contact us here at Wellers Physio and rest assured only science-based approaches will be used. Our team with several decades of combined experience have earned formal qualifications and have undergone the most recent training to ensure that we’re delivering the most appropriate treatment to each patient.
