Seeing improvements in strength or functional performance requires a focused plan to push the body to new levels. An unfortunate side effect of regular (or even inconsistent) training is the occasional ‘tweak’ or spasm of a muscle or around a joint. Typically, these injuries aren’t enough to affect our training...but what about when a more significant injury occurs? 

Should we simply stop training and rest or ‘push through’ the messages our body is sending us?

The good news is that minor changes to your training plan can keep you in the game without causing further damage or harm to our muscles and tissues. 

Disclaimer: This is not individualized medical advice, always defer to the assessment/ diagnosis/ recommendations of a registered physiotherapist or other licensed medical professional. This is meant to be used as guidelines to foster an open attitude towards training and experiencing pain.

Try these tips to navigate your way around an injury and still participate in some form of fitness:

1. Slow It Down

With minor injury, it may be beneficial to continue the movement but limit the use of momentum and rely on strict strength instead. While output or speed may diminish by not using momentum/speed, this is a way to bring intention to how we’re moving and protect our tissues by preventing the risk of overexerting ourselves ‘in the moment’.

For example, if push presses are causing shoulder pain you can slow down the explosive component to a strict press with a slowed (eccentric) lower back to the shoulder.

2. Limit the Range of Motion

Typically joints or muscles are irritated or stressed in their outer ranges (when they are fully shortened or fully lengthened). Keeping tissues in a ‘safe zone’ of stretch can limit the burden on the tissues.

For example, if the bottom pull of your deadlift is causing irritation to your low back or hamstrings, try pulling from blocks or from a rack or stack of plates. Limiting the depth of the deadlift will remove some of the strain associated with movement while maintaining the strength.

3. Isometric Holds

For tissues that are very irritated, it may not be enough to reduce the range of motion. We may need to eliminate motion entirely. Static or isometric holds allow us to maintain strength and stimulate muscles with load without actually moving the joints.

Examples of this type of exercise could be a plank hold, front rack hold, overhead weighted carry or hold, wall sit or goblet squat hold.

4. Mix Up the Exercise Variations

Small changes to a movement can change the stimulus enough to take an exercise from painful to painless. Examples of these small changes could be foot placement, grip change, weight/load type or placement, or torso/knee angle changes.

Using the burpee as an example - some changes could be using an elevated surface to hop down to, stepping in/out instead of jumping in/out, slowing down and bringing intention to breath, or adding a knee push up at the bottom instead of full body contact with the floor.

5. Unload Irritated Tissues

Sometimes tissue may need to be unloaded completely from compressive or shear forces so that they can heal. For example, if squatting is painful for the low back altogether, then stimulating the prime movers of the legs through lunges, deadlifts, step ups may be better alternatives until you are healed.

6. Lighten The Load

If your normal weights/load aren’t being tolerated, we may want to reduce the load and change the tempo or rep scheme to something more tolerable. This still allows us to keep our general physical preparedness and routine (and mental health release) while healing our body. Hypertrophy or strength gains may be removed for the time being but as always, something is better than nothing!

7. Train Unilaterally 

With a severe injury or post-operatively, a muscle or joint complex may not be able to be used at all. In these cases it is still important to train our uninjured side. Research has discovered that there are ‘mirror neurons’ that will improve the performance of the injured limb long-term, while only training only the uninjured side. Exercise also improves overall circulation and increased blood flow can maximize our body’s ability to heal itself.

A general fear of unilateral training is creating asymmetry between two limbs but movement is always better than becoming completely sedentary!