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You Will Learn What to do if this happens to you

I kind of feel obliged to write this, after suffering two annoying injuries, which were easily preventable. The first one occurred over the summer. I was sparring with my little brother and didn’t wrap my wrists up. Being the aggressor I got the most jabs in and the repetitive strain injured my left wrist. Just the other day, I was practicing some highly advanced back bridge work and then bam, I whack my elbow on the wall. These were easily preventable but these things do happen sometimes. So today this post is going to be about how to prevent injuries and also work around them if they do occur.

Prevention

Don’t go beyond what you’re capable of. If you cannot do a rep of whatever exercise you are doing in proper form, you should move down a level and only progress when you can perform them in proper form for however many reps it takes to progress. Little things like make sure nothing is lying around in your training environment and make sure your laces are tied.

A lot of people will tell you no pain no gain. I say you should exercise until discomfort but if it feels like something is going to snap or break don’t push yourself just for the sake of your ego or listening to that go hard or go home talk. There is an exercise combination outlined in Convict Conditioning 2 called the trifecta that helps further injury proof your body. Also the exercises in Convict Conditioning 1 are designed to strengthen your muscles as well as your joints, ligaments and tendons etc. so will allow you to heal faster as I did.

Warm Up

Warming up is also very important but not the standard warm up that people tell you to do such as run for 5 minutes on a treadmill. My warm ups are specific to the exercise I am about to perform. I will usually start with a quick jog on the spot for a minute or 2 but if I am going to perform an 80kg bench press, I will start with 40kg and lift that in the same tempo as I will lift the 80kg. I will then work up to 80kg so would do 60kg next in the same way. In phase 3 for example of Visual Impact, you lift really heavy weights for very low reps in a very slow way to really activate your nervous system. I would do the warm up lifts in this same slow tempo as well. For my bodyweight exercises from Convict Conditioning, take the uneven pushup, which I am performing at the moment.

You still must warm up for bodyweight training because it is very tough and should be taken just as serious as weight training. What I would do to warm up for this is to perform some exercises lower down in the progression system, for example 10 reps of incline pushups, and then 10 reps of regular pushups. I would then rest a short minute and begin the uneven pushups.

Cool Down

Have to say I have never been a big fan of these and personally don’t employ them myself. I know I will get a lot of stick for this but I know people that regularly do cool downs and get injured and I seem to stay injury free apart from when I do something stupid as I mentioned earlier. To me a cool down is more work for the muscles, which I am sure just want to rest. They say it prevents soreness but I have never found this to be true for myself personally. When you get sore it is because you have worked a muscle that hasn’t been worked before in a while or you exposed it to shock such as adding more weight to your routine. By all means if you find a cool down to be useful for you, carry on doing it, it may psychologically help you or you may even find it does personally prevent you from being sore. Our experiences are subjective I find and what works for me may not work for you and vice versa.

What To Do If You Get Injured

A lot of you know what to do already. This is known as R.I.C.E. and is an acronym for rest, ice, compression and elevation. Its main aim is to reduce swelling which can interfere with the healing progress.

Rest- well this is fairly obvious. When you injure a body part, stop using that muscle immediately or you risk making it worse.

Ice- this basically reduces the swelling as the cold tissues contract. Make sure you place a barrier such as a towel between your skin and the ice pack. To further reduce swelling you could take advantage of ibuprofen or aspirin and even reduce the pain.

Compression- this also reduces excess swelling. Wrap the injured area in a snug but not tight bandage. We don’t want to stop blood flow. Wrap at point furthest from the heart and loosen if it causes pain or numbness.

Elevation- raising the injured area above the heart. This drains out excess fluid using gravity. You could use pillows or just get creative and raise it.

This should be done until swelling is reduced.

What Next?

This is now where my advice differs from what you will hear from the mainstream. The mainstream will tell you to just rest completely until the injury has recovered. To me this is unproductive and will make the healing process slower. I personally take the positives out of injury. I work on muscles harder, which I may have neglected before. As you are probably aware I follow convict conditioning and the first 3 progressions of each of the big 6 are basically prehab or rehab exercises. They are very soft movements and easy to perform so can use these on the injured body parts as long as it doesn’t hurt.

I banged my elbow hard on the 13^th of November and at the time it honestly felt like my elbow would be hurting for a few weeks. The pain was so excruciating and I stopped exercising immediately. I applied the principles applied earlier but saw there wasn’t much swelling.  The next day I couldn’t bend it. The day after it got a bit of movement and here is an example of how I still went about my training

I work out two days a week because of my busy schedule and it looks something like this.

Workout 1

Pullups, pistol squats, uneven pushups, hangs.

Workout 2

Handstand pushups, bridges walking down, hanging leg raises, calf raises, finger pushups.

You can see most of the convict conditioning progressions on my YouTube page.

For workout 1, pullups are out. I am not strong enough for one arm pullups so that is also out. I performed step 1, which is wall pulls.

I can still perform pistol squats, uneven pushups were out but as I have the strength for one arm pushups I did this on my left hand. I also did some wall pushups for blood flow to my elbow as I tested this and it doesn’t hurt. I excluded hangs.

In workout 2, handstand pushups are out, but I did some one arm dumbbell presses or 1 arm laterals. For bridges I reverted to step 1 which puts no strain on the arms. Hanging leg raises is also out but I can do step 5 which is flat leg raises. Calf raises are obviously still in and I excluded finger pushups.

So why do I continue to train when mainstream advice and even doctors too. Here is a list of why:

1. Training boosts my self-esteem, it keeps me motivated and is proactive.
2. Routine- training is a habit of mine, I love it, and I look forward to it. Getting back into this habit after a long layoff is much harder than getting into my habit again after working out partially.
3. The body works as a unit, and training one muscle can transfer to strength to other muscles
4. I get to maintain my fitness, instead of losing it all and having to gain it all back which is a hard process.
5. Hormonal balance- training gives you a nice release of good hormones. When you quit training you wont get these wonderful effects.
6. Training increases blood flow around the body, which will speed up your recovery.
7. Stress reduction- exercise helps deal with stress and releases endorphins, which gives you that feel good factor.

This can lead to strength imbalances, but as mentioned earlier crossover effects help limit this and retain more strengths than would have been lost if training was stopped completely.

Okay hopefully you guy take this advice on board and don’t get injured in the first place. If you do however try out these tips and let me know how quick you healed. I will let you guys know when I am 100%.

Note: I do follow my own advice and my elbow recovered in 5 days and I was able to perform my regular workout yesterday. Another tip is swimming, it is such a great rehab exercise and partially responsible for my quick healing of my wrist.