Injured? You don't have to stop training. Here's what to do and why.
If you’re reading this, you might have gotten injured training. Or there’s a nagging injury or pain that won’t seem to go away and you’re wondering what to do. This blog post will help educate you on what to do. It’s written by our co-founder and head coach Tim Caron. Coach spent more than a decade working with athletes at the highest levels of athletics and he has a ton of experience with how to handle training and injuries. We’ll cover what to do if you’re injured, why you should do it, how we approach injuries at Allegiate, and common misconceptions about blanket advice from PT’s or doctors when it comes to training.
In short, if you are hurt you should probably continue training. That might sound counterintuitive and a convenient stance for Allegiate to take. But unless there is a direct surgical intervention, there is no need to stop training because we can make adjustments within our program that are custom to you.
Let's take a step back and look at Allegiate’s background: working with high-level athletics. Resiliency is the most important quality in any sport. An athlete that is hurt is an athlete that cannot contribute. In turn, training needs to focus on that area first and foremost. This is the central theme behind Allegiate’s Model along with why we are so adamant with our screening process. Much like athletics, a hurt member is a member that will have a hard time training consistently.
It is unrealistic to expect athletes to not experience some sort of discomfort or pain during off-season and in-season. This does not change the fact that we still need to develop that athlete to perform at the highest level in competition. The same is said for training year-round for the rest of the world. Dealing with athletes at that level and keeping them in top shape despite their injuries influenced how we approach injuries with our members.
When considering taking a break from training, the question you need to ask yourself is what is in your best interest? When we experience pain should we cease training altogether? This makes sense in that we want to rest and heal that body part. But this rest comes with an additional cost.
A Principle of training is ‘Reversibility’ which means if we do not train something we lose something. as Strength and Conditioning Coaches with an athlete experiences pain or sustains an injury, we have to find a means to continue training. If we do not train through setbacks, we will lose all the progress we have made up to that point. Along with that comes an increased risk for injuring something else when they do return. Point is: a stoppage in training can actually be counterproductive and increase risk.
Reversibility is more of a matter of the rate of fitness loss occurs and the subsequent gain back of that lost fitness. The simple way to visit this is the longer we train, or the higher our functional levels are, the longer we can sustain stoppages of training. For people that train hard continuously and consistently - taking days and weeks off actually are beneficial coming off extended periods of training to help with adaptation. On the other hand, if you have not been training long or were inconsistent with training and decide to stop for whatever reason, you will lose whatever progress more rapidly.
What is in your best interest is a matter of how many other things are you willing to lose during a stoppage of training. Developing a routine of coming in three times a week takes time to make habitual. If you are in a good spot of consistent training and reaping the benefits of consistency, stopping could be catastrophic. It becomes increasingly difficult to start back knowing how long it took to build up to something and how quickly you may lose that development.
We never want to take an injury or pain for granted. This is your body telling yourself something is wrong and you should avoid doing that. If something is wrong please seek medical attention. But our hope is that we can develop a correspondence with you and your medical professional on how to best manage that injury or pain so we can keep training during rehab/recovery.
WHAT WE DO ONCE WE HEAR SOMEONE IS IN PAIN
Whenever we hear someone is in pain we will always say, “let's get a Functional Movement Screen.” A functional movement screen is a standardized assessment that gives us an objective measurement on your key joints like ankle, knee, hip, back, and shoulders. This is not to diagnose something because we are not clinically trained to do that. However, a functional movement screen does create a common language with a Physical Therapist or a medical professional. In the strength and conditioning space, the reason FMS exists is so that Strength and Conditioning Coaches can communicate with Physical Therapists and Orthopedics on what is best to do with pain or injury in training.
How we can work your plan with your physical therapist
Good rehab looks at reducing pain and increasing function while maintaining training. We encourage you to get the FMS and connect us with your PT. Sometimes the PT simply lacks faith that a commercial fitness option will provide a safe and effective training experience with someone in pain. We feel confident that we can take that information from the PT and the FMS to appropriate exercise selections to facilitate safe training.
The follow-through is the most important part here. Getting all the information from the FMS along with a conversation with your PT sets the stage for organizing training. We will say this till we are blue in the face: Our class Allegiate Stretch is the fastest/most linear way to improve ROM of the hip and shoulder. Most problems occur due to lack of Flexibility (Passive Range Of Motion). It is when we surpass the joint, connective tissue, or muscle’s capacity with excessive demand we have pain and injury.
The best way to increase the capacity is to increase the Passive ROM!
With our Allegiate Stretch class, we can still keep a routine and stay on a cadence three times a week without the risk of aggravating or worsening an injury. Along with Stretch, we still recommend coming to Strength. Strength is designed exclusively off what we consistently find in our FMS. We can also modify more readily. If you have something that is painful we apply what we call a ‘Regression’. Regression is performing a version of the exercise that does not cause pain. We either change the position, joints involved, or where or what we externally load with to train that pattern without pain.
You are experiencing pain, this is significant to us and we hear you. We all collectively want you out of pain as fast as possible. We really need to evaluate the actual cost of taking time off from the gym. It is no guarantee that rest will heal an injury, it is a guarantee that time away from the gym will lead to diminished performance.
If you have been on a good, consistent cadence, it is better to stay on that cadence. Avoiding a painful joint or movement pattern is the same thing as resting it, just without the stoppage in pain.
How to sign up for an FMS
In your Allegiate app, navigate to the consultations tab and book a free Functional Movement Screen. In the appointment notes, please briefly list your reason for the functional movement screen. In that FMS, a coach will take you through a screen and from there discuss the modifications we will make during Strength to accommodate you during class.
You can also book an FMS with the widget below.