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If your day-to-day life includes finding time to exercise, it’s hard to break from the routine when you’re injured. Exercise is a stress reliever, can help with weight management, improve your mood, and reduce the risk of illness and disease. If you’re recovering from an injury, you don’t have to completely give up exercising. There are many substitute exercises you can do to stay active while recovering.
Before starting, talk with your doctor about your physical fitness options while rehabbing an injury. Depending on the type of injury you have, you may need more rest before you can jump back in the gym. Additionally, you will need to test out some movements to determine your range of motion and ability to exercise without pain. Fitness gurus may tell you to work through the pain, but if you’re injured, that is advice you should dismiss.
Back pain can occur for any number of reasons. Although sitting or lying down can feel better, it’s actually better to try to stay active and strengthen the muscles surrounding the injured area. Still, you should avoid spinal loading exercises, such as squats. Body weight exercises are a great way to strength train without putting too much pressure on your spine. Additional substitute exercises include:
Yoga and Pilates are great ways to improve your strength and flexibility. Let your instructor know that you have a back injury so they can guide you on which exercises you may need to skip.
Wrist injuries, elbow pain, and shoulder injuries are just a few upper body issues that can bring your exercise regimen to complete stop. However, with these injuries, you can focus on training your lower body. Cardio, like running, walking, and biking, are great ways to stay active. You can also incorporate strength training, but bear in mind that if you’re suffering from upper body injuries, holding heavy weights could cause you some pain.
Injuries to the knee, ankle, hip or foot can substantially impact your everyday life, including exercising. Aquatic exercises, such as swimming, water aerobics, and strength training in water, are some good options.
An ergometer, also known as an arm bike, can also help you break a sweat when you put the resistance level on high.
ARC trainers are a great cardio option, but keep the resistance levels on the lower side. Be mindful of whether the movements are painful or not. Some people find an ARC trainer to be low impact enough for exercising with a lower body injury, but for others, it could cause pain.
For most of these injuries, walking is a great way to stay active while recovering from an injury.
If you’re suffering from any type of injury, you don’t have to stop being active. Test exercises and movements out and develop a regimen around your injuries. Your chiropractor can also help you develop a training and nutritional plan so that you can remain active while rehabilitating from any type of injury.
