“I went to the gym for two weeks but then I hurt my shoulder and never went back.”
“I don’t think I can do Crossfit; my bad knees can’t handle all the squats they do.”
Do these sound like things you’ve heard from your friends, or things you’ve told yourself to explain why your short foray into regular exercise fizzled?
Or maybe you’ve been around for a while and are frustrated by the constant feeling of taking two steps forward, one step back. You spend weeks or months gradually building in strength and skill, only to tweak your hamstring and feel like you’ve lost much of what you’ve been working so hard for.
We have good news and bad news for you.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: Injuries are a fact of life. Even with the best coaches, proper warmups and cooldowns, and an emphasis on proper technique and safe movement, many athletes will eventually encounter an ache or pain that is more than just muscle soreness.
The good news is that a good fitness program run by good coaches will minimize the risk of injury. The better news is that if you do happen to suffer an injury, or if you have a longer-term physical limitation, chances are you don’t need to stop exercising completely.
Four ways to prevent injuries
Don’t go from 0 to 100. We love it when new members are enthusiastic about jumping into all of the programming CFN has to offer, but it’s important to build up slowly, especially if it’s been a while since you had a regular exercise routine.
For most athletes just starting out, a good goal to start with is making it to class three days per week. See how you feel the day after your first workout, and listen to your body. Chances are you’ll be a little more sore than you expected, and a day off between workouts will help ensure that you’re fresh and ready to go when you come back for your second class.
Give it time, and you’ll find that as you become stronger and better conditioned, you’ll be able to add a fourth or even fifth workout per week.
Take rest days. Even the best and most experienced athletes need to give their bodies time to rest and recover. This is the time when the hard work you’ve put in at the gym turns into gains in muscle and strength!
All athletes should be taking at least one or two rest days per week. A rest day is not coming to the gym and taking it easy on the workout — it’s rest! Get good sleep, fuel your body properly, relax, and come back the next day ready to hit the WOD at full intensity.
Listen to your body. This goes hand-in-hand with starting out slowly and building rest days into your routine. Some days you might have every intention of coming to the gym and crushing the workout, but life has other plans: you didn’t get enough sleep, or your body is more fatigued than you expected from the rest of the week, or stress from work means your heart just isn’t in it that day.
Days like that when you still want to work out but you know you can’t give it your all are where active recovery comes in. This means scaling down the weights, skill, or intensity in the workout, or doing some other light physical activity. Read our post on active recovery for ideas on good activities to try on those days.
Don’t skip the bookends. While the workout of the day is the focus of the class, what happens before and after the WOD is just as important. All personal training sessions and group classes start with a warm-up designed to get your joints and muscles ready for the movements you’ll be doing that day. When the workout is done, the coach will typically recommend one or two additional stretches that will help you begin to recover.
You are not limited to the warm-ups and cool-downs provided in class. If you have one muscle group that’s especially sore, arrive a few minutes early and take advantage of the gym’s foam rollers and bands to do some extra stretching. If you know you have poor mobility that affects your ability to perform certain movements, that extra time before class is also a good time to work on stretches and other corrective exercises that can help improve that range of motion.
You’re also welcome to stick around for a few minutes after class ends to continue stretching and cooling down.
Three ways to work through an injury
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, injuries happen. Here are some tips for taking care of yourself, and keeping up your workout routine, until you’re fully healed.
Good communication. The time to tell a coach about any injuries or movements you’d like to avoid is before class starts or during the warm-up. This gives them time to ask you about what skills in class might pose an issue and offer ideas for good substitutions.
Sometimes the adjustment can be as simple as altering the range of motion on a skill, for example going from a squat clean to a power clean to work around a knee problem, or from an American kettlebell swing to a Russian swing to avoid aggravating a shoulder issue. Other times the coach can help you find an entirely different movement or even workout that you can do pain-free.
Everything is scalable. The same advice applies to more chronic injuries. Maybe you have a bad shoulder and overhead pressing just doesn’t feel good, or your foot has never been the same after a bad injury years ago and high-impact jumping simply isn’t an option. Your coaches are here to help you! Let them know if there are certain movements you know will bother you, and they can help you work around it. As you gain experience, you’ll learn which substitutions are appropriate in different contexts and you’ll become more creative with the ways you adapt your workouts.
Even when you’re not injured, you know your own body best. If the strength work calls for heavy deadlifts but your back is already feeling a little bit tight, drop the weight down to something that you can move safely, use the time to stretch rather than lift, or pick a modification like a trap bar deadlift that is slightly gentler on your back. If your shoulder isn’t loving the kip swings in the warm-up, don’t fight your way through tons of kipping pull-ups in the WOD. Your long-term health is far more important than that “Rx” next to your name on the whiteboard that day.
Be patient. If your shoulder is bothering you, don’t come in every day and do a set of push-ups to check if it magically feels better. Keep active by sticking to movements that don’t hurt your shoulder, be diligent about completing any necessary rehab work, and trust that your overall fitness will help you bounce back when you’re finally ready to add shoulder-intensive skills back into your routine.
The same 0-to-100 advice offered for athletes just starting out also applies to those returning from injury. Don’t avoid pull-ups for two months and then do 100 reps on your first day back. Start with a small number of reps, or a scaled variation like a ring row, and build up slowly to give your muscles time to regain strength and ensure you don’t immediately reinjure yourself.
The same applies to routine illnesses like colds and flus unrelated to fitness. Don’t lie in bed for three days then try to go all out on a long, heavy workout and set yourself up for a relapse or a new injury because you tried to do too much too soon. Take it easy while your body reacclimates to high intensity workouts.
Your coaches are not doctors. While coaches may be able to recommend stretches or pre-hab exercises that will target certain muscles, they are not medical professionals and cannot make diagnoses for your nagging aches and pains. If you’re having an issue beyond routine muscle soreness that doesn’t resolve after a week or two, even with rest, it’s time to see a doctor or physical therapist. CFN is lucky to have several professionals many members have worked with and trust:
Physical Therapy
Chiropractor
Make the best of it. It’s natural to be disappointed when an injury keeps you from doing everything you want to, but it can also give you an opportunity to hone in on a particular weakness. If squats are a no-go for a few weeks, use the time to work on your upper body pressing or nailing that first muscle-up or pull-up. If the high impact of running is too much for your joints, use running workouts to improve on the row or bike. Put in the rehab work that your doctor or PT recommends, and you’ll be better than ever when you’re back to 100 percent.
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