Keep Training Around the Injury

Bad things can happen despite efforts to avoid them, and you get hurt.

An injury does not usually mean you stop training.

It means you change what you are doing.

If you hurt a shoulder, you still have legs. If you hurt a knee, you still have your upper body. If one movement is not available, another usually is. There are almost always work-arounds for an injured joint, limb, or area of the body.

The mistake is turning an injury into full-body inactivity.

The body adapts to what is asked of it. That works both ways. Apply the right kind of effort, and the body works to maintain or improve strength. Remove demand, and the body begins to give up what it no longer needs.

That is atrophy.

This is why the medical community gets people moving as soon as possible after surgery. Not recklessly. Not foolishly. But as soon as it is safe and appropriate. Movement matters. Demand matters. Strength matters.

The goal is not to “push through” an injury.

The goal is to keep practicing what you can practice.

Train what is trainable. Protect what needs protection. Work around the injury instead of surrendering the whole body to it.

Strength is too important to abandon every time something hurts. As we age, weakness takes life away slowly. Injury can speed that process up if we let it turn into inactivity.

The answer is not avoiding effort.

The answer is intelligent effort.

Keep moving. Keep loading what can be loaded. Keep asking the body to stay useful.

That is the practice.