How To Continue Your Workouts With An Injury

Having an minor injury or tweak is no excuse to sit at home, binge-watching Netflix and overdosing on chocolates. As fun as that sounds…..Your training hasn’t stopped, it’s just taken a slight detour.

When you work out at Defiant, you’re lucky to be able to work with a coach in every class. The focus of your coach is to walk you and guide you through your workouts. That role still applies even when you have an injury. In fact, this is when you need to guidance of your coach the most. (NOTE: we in no way condone working out with serious injuries. This article is addressing minor injuries and tweaked areas. Don’t make it weird.)

Think of all the people out there on their fitness journey who have the misfortune of not having a coach. No one to consult. No one to make recommendations for them. No one who cares about them. How much does that suck???

Add an injury to that lonely, coach-less, one-man-show of fitness, and what have you got? Stiff muscles, a chocolate-stained sofa and an extra 10 pounds. No thanks. I think I’ll go talk to my coach now.

When one of our athletes has an injury or tweaked area, we encourage them to stick to their normal workout schedule. One of the biggest advantages of CrossFit is the wide variety of movements and combinations of skills that yield a killer training routine. This is the beauty of modifications.

Our talented coaches are here to help athletes modify their workouts on a daily basis as part of their training. But for an athlete with a tweak, we want to make sure they get the intended stimulus of the high intensity workout (just like everybody else) while staying off the tweaked area entirely by offering alternative movements that can be performed safely. So congrats, you get the same privilege of falling to the floor in a hot, sweaty mess too. You’re just going to do it differently for awhile.

So how do you look on the bright side when you have to heal for weeks and it feels like an eternity?

There’s no break in your training routine.

Your training won’t suffer a breakdown.

An increase in blood flow helps to deliver a steady stream of fresh nutrients, oxygen and white blood cells the injured area for faster healing.

You have to be mindful of your movements.

It’s a chance to work your weaknesses.

You’ll come out of it stronger.

You look like a total badass in front of your friends because you’ve given zero excuses.

It’s amazing what you’ll learn about yourself given the opportunity to focus on specific areas or movements and even weaknesses. You can still do more than most. Take a breath and be grateful. High fives anyone?