Training injuries are something that are bound to happen to all of us at some time during our time lifting. I'm sure all of us have seen people post questions online on social media or in forums etc. They usually go something like this: "I've hurt my X body part. It hurts right here when I do this. Has anyone else experienced this and what should/should I not do?".
An interesting way I've seen some people respond to this kind of thing is along the lines of "A man goes to the Doctor and says 'It hurts when I do this' to which the Doctor replies '... so don't do that' ". Such a simple analogy but it has a really solid message behind it. You are never going to get any level of specific diagnosis over the internet. Many injuries present with similar symptoms and people can experience different symptoms for the same injury. So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to ask a question about what an injury is over the internet. At best you might get a ball park answer if there are some strong tell tale signs. But usually you will just end up confused.
I have created a series of questions you can ask yourself if you are experiencing a minor injury that may help you decide what to do:
1. Are you injured?
- Yes: go to 2
- No: continue training as normal
2. Does the exercise you want to do cause pain or other symptoms?
- Yes: go to 3
- No: do the exercise
3. Is the pain (or other symptoms) severe enough to warrant treatment?
- Yes: see a health professional
- No: avoid the aggravating exercise(s) temporarily
Obviously injuries can be more complicated than this. Sometimes an injury will be so severe that you will definitely want to seek treatment without even attempting any exercises. Sometimes an issue may be present that doesn't significantly affect your training that may be worth seeing a health professional about. There are also at times certain things you can do yourself to work on mobility or to manage pain and inflammation. However at least when it comes to managing minor injuries and deciding whether or not you should do an exercise this simple process should help.
If you are still in doubt go back to the analogy I mentioned initially:
"A man goes to the Doctor and says 'It hurts when I do this' to which the Doctor replies '... so don't do that' ".
What to do after the injury recovers
If you saw a physio as a result of your injury it is likely that they would have discussed your injury with you so that you have a better understanding of it. You would most likely also have performed rehabilitation exercises to work on areas that lacked mobility or stability as well. So at this point that stuff should be addressed already and you should know what things you need to be conscious of when you are training.
After you have recovered from your injury and the symptoms are no longer present or present at low levels the first thing you should do is start to carefully reintroduce the exercises that you previously experienced symptoms whilst doing. I stress that this should be a gradual reintroduction of these exercises, not just jumping straight into the loads you were using when you were uninjured.
If you did not see a physio or health professional and let you injury recover on it's own I suggest taking extra caution with easing back into performing previous aggravating exercises. You should also be very much aware of what entails correct form and whether or not your form is correct (as technique faults may have contributed to your injury in the first place).
Finally you need to be aware of and address the reasons you injured yourself in the first place (unless it was an accident). And you need to address the factors that may now predispose you to recurrence of the same injury. Were you using faulty exercise technique? Did you fail to warm up? Are some muscles too weak? Are some muscles too tight? Do you lack mobility in certain areas? Are you hyper-mobile in certain joints? Are you lacking stability in a region? Some of these things you might be able to figure out and discover how to work on them yourself. Other things might be worth a trip or two to the physio. Often times these things need to be sorted out though or you may find you continue to injure yourself over and over.
That's about it for this week folks!
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- Evan
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