It's Just a Flesh Wound - Working Through Injury

It’s challenging to sustain a fitness plan while battling an injury—and injuries frequently occur at the height of progress. As one of the top fitness apps available, our experience, in-depth instruction, and attention to detail make KinetiCoach the perfect resource for pursuing fitness while recovering from injury. Follow our 5 steps to stay on your the path to fitness goals despite injury.

Step 1: Admit you have an injury.  This is hard, but here’s some perspective: it's better to miss a workout, or to avoid a certain exercise for a short period than to aggravate an injury, taking you out of the game completely or delaying recovery. Trust that with KinetiCoach, you can still improve your fitness even if you can't do certain movements or workouts.

Step 2: Know your injury and your exact limitations.  It’s empowering to understand your body and injury, and to be involved in your recovery.  First, ensure you see a licensed Medical Doctor to diagnose your injury and to get recommendations on fitness limitations. Next, identify what contributed to the injury.  Was it lack of flexibility? Or years of poor posture? Too heavy of weight leading to poor form? Too many repetitions for your skill level? Knowing how the injury was caused and why specific movements cause pain, helps you choose KinetiCoach Alternate Movement options and KinetiCoach Flexibility exercises appropriate for your injury.

Step 3: Don't stop moving! The gym is where you made your progress and it's where you’ll continue progress despite your injury.  After a medical doctor-prescribed or self-assigned rest period, get back to moving within your medical doctor’s guidelines. Even if you’re just doing flexibility, maintain your workout schedule the best you can (unless you are sick or if overtraining contributed to your injury).

Step 4: Set new goals, or modify your existing goals.  With the awareness you gained in step 2, develop CLEAR, MEASURABLE and REALISTIC fitness goals, bounded by time (normally the forecasted duration of injury recovery). Set goals based on exercises that avoid furthering your injury.  If you have an upper body injury, focus on lower body goals, and vice versa. Don’t neglect bodyweight or gymnastic movements as legitimate game-changing goals. Developing pull-ups and dips while recovering from a knee injury can give you upper-body strength previously lacking.

Step 5:  Find your alternate movements and stick with them until fully recovered:  Use KinetiCoach’s Alternate Movements to identifying which exercises you can perform while working towards your fitness goals. If you know doing a certain exercise will cause pain during or after the workout (even if it doesn’t hurt during the warm up), then use a KinetiCoach Alternate Movement listed at the bottom of the Movement Demo page.  

Here's an example from one of KinetiCoach’s professional coaching staff: “The injury was periodic shoulder pain.  It hurt primarily during movements like dips and pushups. This was most likely caused by years of marginal posture, high volume gymnastics, poor movement patterns during overhead exercises, and insufficient shoulder flexibility work. When the pain flared up, it corresponded to a period of higher overhead volume, but more importantly, with a lack of consistent flexibility work.  It generally took about 3 weeks for my shoulders to fully recover. So I would set a three-week goal of focused lower-body strength or aerobic work, and intense shoulder flexibility.  I avoided overhead and internal shoulder rotation other than flexibility exercises. During these periods, I’ve made some of my largest strength and aerobic gains. I sustained the shoulder flexibility work after full recovery, and have nearly eliminated all shoulder pain.

Step 6: “The plan of the plan is to stick to the plan” -Dan John.  See your recovery through! Develop a plan with specific measurable goals and avoid furthering your injury by utilizing KinetiCoach’s Alternate Movements and Flexibility Exercises (in the Movement Demo Library), then follow your plan to recovery!

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KINETICOACH is the best fitness App for travel, vacation, and home.  It was developed by business travelers and fitness professionals with more than 30 years of personal coaching experience and decades using hotel gyms

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