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Avoid Self Diagnosis and Rehabilitation

 

This is more common than you think. Someone gets injured and the first thing they do is play Dr Google. This is one of the worst things you can do for your recovery! The first website that pops up is unfortunately probably not going to solve your problems. We recommend gaining the assistance of accredited professional to help you with your injury. This could be an Exercise Physiologist, Strength & Conditioning Coach, Sport Scientist, Physiotherapist, Osteopath or Sports Doctors (or even better- a combination of them!). They will be able to firstly diagnose your injury correctly and then provide you with the appropriate program and exercises to get you back to full health.

And please trust us when we say…you can not just Google your symptoms and come up with the answer! There is a good chance your leg pain is not anything to do with your leg and is in fact referred pain for example. This is exactly why it is so important to let your coach know that you feel a niggle or an injury AS SOON AS IT HAPPENS!
The sooner you get a professional involved, the quicker the correct rehabilitation process can start and the sooner you can recover and get back to regular training.
Otherwise, Google away and your new found profession of Injury Expert is going to potentially hinder your rehabilitation process and you will suffer more setbacks than originally presented.

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Training

 

When you become injured, it is definitely true that you need to rest from certain activities and/or decrease the intensity and frequency of your training sessions. But you should not stop training entirely. You should in fact, continue training so you can not only maintain your overall fitness, but also rehabilitate your current injury and prevent any further injuries from occurring.

In terms of what training you are able to do, it will likely depend on what your injury is and the severity of it. Often, your sessions may begin to include more mobility and stability work as well as some additional strength exercises that are either modifications or new versions of what you have been doing previously. Your recovery and cool down protocol will also take up more importance.

Contrary to common belief, whether you have an overuse injury, muscle imbalance or trauma injury, training will actually help speed up your recovery, as opposed to hinder it (given you undertake the appropriate training of course).

The correct recovery and regeneration techniques must also go hand in hand with this training to best aid rehabilitation. These may include stretching, adequate rest, myofascial release, sleep and contrast showers. If you don’t have time to do any of these? Get ready for a longer and more painful recovery! (Best just to do them we say!).

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Nutrition

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Nutrition can also play a vital role in your recovery and rehabilitation and it is pretty simple to get it right. Eat good, nutritious food and eat enough of it! Often when training is decreased either through frequency or intensity, you will need to eat less. However, the mistake is often made in eating too little which can be counterproductive in the rehabilitation process. The problem with this is that when an injury occurs, your body has shown to increase its Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) by 15-50% so your body actually needs more food to fuel it through the healing process.
In addition to eating enough food, you will also need to ensure you are eating the correct amount of carbohydrates, proteins and fats as well as getting enough vitamins and minerals. We recommend sourcing the assistance of an Accredited Dietitian to help you work out a recovery based eating plan.

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Sleep

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In order to recover, you need to give your body time to rest. Sleep is one of the essential steps in getting adequate recovery for your injury and we can’t stress this enough! Not only is it one of the best defences in preventing further injury, but it also assists in secreting hormones that are required for a strong immune system, bone strength, increased muscle mass and energy. It is recommended that you aim for at least seven to eight hours a night. If you miss out on these precious hours, this can lead to muscle atrophy and the ability to repair damaged muscles so make sure you get enough zzzz’s!

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Have a positive attitude!

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It may sound silly but a positive attitude will help accelerate your recovery much more than being a Debby Downer (sorry Debby!). If you do not want to play an active role in your rehabilitation and do the right things, you can expect to be injured a whole lot longer. Sure, it can be disheartening to think all your hard work is down the drain but if you don’t put in the right work, you will often spiral down into a deeper hole of injury.