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My own understanding of injury management has gone through somewhat of a revival in recent years. Looking at the way best practices have changed regarding injury reads like a Hot or Not:

Hot	Not
Understanding that pain is a complex emotion influenced by a variety of factors.	Thinking that all pain is linked to a mechanical fault in the body.
Helping people expand their comfort zones by graded exposure to different challenges.	Using “corrective” exercises to “fix” an issue.
Viewing medical scans as the final authority in injury diagnosis.	Understanding that many “injuries” picked up in scans are also present in people with no symptoms.

It’s safe to say that injury and pain are too complex for me to discuss specifics here, and you should definitely consult with healthcare professionals if you need help managing pain or injury. However, here are some general principles I’ve learned from other professionals, client experiences, and my own injuries.

Don’t Talk About Your Injury in Absolute Terms

“I can’t do X, my ankle is weak, etc.”

Self-limiting beliefs are always a hindrance, regardless of the subject matter. But where injuries are concerned, these mental road-blocks are be downright damaging. If you believe that there are things you cannot ever do because of your injury – such as squatting, or putting weight on your wrists like in a pressup – then you will likely never try it again. This could lead to de-training, which can cause lost strength, control, and range of motion… and possibly increased susceptibility to pain. This means that the previously injured joint or muscle will feel ten times worse.

Pain is an inhibitor. It stops you from doing things that are perceived as risky or harmful, and your perceptions are incredibly influential in what you can or can’t do. If you have written certain abilities off mentally, you’ll be facing an uphill battle to get those abilities back.

Of course, this doesn’t mean it’s all in your head. Certain movements may have to be avoided at first, and every case is different. But you need to open your mind to the idea of building back up eventually.

Do Make a List of Your Current Abilities

Understanding what you can currently do is incredibly useful for measuring your progress and staying active. For example, imagine this: an arm injury has stopped you from locking your elbow out completely straight, but you can straighten your elbow 80% of the way. You should do what you can with that 80%, and over time try to increase the range. You’d be surprised how often people improve their long-term injuries simply by gently nudging their current comfort zone.

“When I started working with Mike I had a bunch of nagging issues – notably with my knees and shoulders. After a little over a year working together my shoulder issues have totally cleared up and my knees aren’t holding me back in the gym anymore. “

One of my personal training clients, Gabe. Read more client testimonials.

Don’t Go Down the Google Rabbithole

We’ve all been there: a tour of the NHS website, WebMD, health blogs, and so on. Before you know it, that bicep strain is actually flesh eating bacteria and your headache is a government microchip. Most online health advice can be categorised in one of two ways:

1. Collections of large samples of data, converted into possible diagnoses and catch-all best practices;
2. One individual’s lived experience of a particular injury similar to yours.

While this information can be useful with the right context, it doesn’t completely reflect your circumstances. Even if you read something that accurately reflects your injury, that doesn’t guarantee you the same experience as the one you’ve read online. Until you’ve spent some time discussing with a qualified and experienced professional, you can’t make too many assumptions about your injury prospects.

Don’t Hop from One Injury Intervention to Another

You did a session with a physio and nothing changed, so it’s time to visit a chiropractor. If that doesn’t work, you’ll try acupuncture. But what if that doesn’t work?

Both injuries and treatments develop over time. Constantly changing the intervention you use is almost guaranteed to leave you with little to no progress. Remember that you are most likely using these services to make a physical or neurological change to the way your body operates, similar to personal training. Would you expect results from a trainer after 1 or 2 sessions?

Of course, there are qualified practitioners out there who may not be as effective as advertised, but you probably won’t know that after one or two sessions. A professional needs time to tailor their services to your circumstances, establishing what does and doesn’t work. Give your practitioner the benefit of the doubt for a while before throwing in the towel.

Do Create an Injury Diary

Is the injury worse in the morning, or evening? Is there anything that particularly aggravates it? What makes it feel better/worse? This kind of information is gold-dust to any injury specialist, and the more complete picture you can provide, the more tailored their approach will be.

For yourself, this will allow you to build a foundation from which you can start to make progress. If an injury keeps reoccurring, you are constantly moving through the initial injury stages – easing a muscle spasm, reducing swelling, etc. If you can find patterns to your injury, you can move past this stage by learning what behaviours to do more or less often.

So many people don’t bother with this, but it’s one of the most straightforward and effective ways you can start to take back control from a persistent injury.

Get Well Soon!

Hopefully this list will start to give you some systems you can use to shift that stubborn injury or nagging discomfort. Good luck with your progress – get in touch if you think I can help you further!

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