Injuries Are The Best Teachers
In my daily life I have a few systems in place to ensure I stay consistent with my workouts. Lately my favorite quote has been “Follow the plan not the mood” when it comes to staying consistent with workouts. For those of you who are looking for some inspo on staying consistent I shared my systems below. However, when I recently found out I should “take it easy” due to a hip injury I immediately got nervous. Working out is more than fitness for me it’s how I unwind from work, its how I balance my mental health, and it allows me to gain clarity on various situations that I am considering. Having to slow down would require a complete change to my daily routine and instead of panicking I took some time plan for the month ahead.
System 1: Planning to go to classes with friends
This helps me to stay on track with regularly working out and when I am struggling in a class or sore the day after, my friends get it. Honestly it has brought us closer and we commiserate together when we are sore. We encourage each other to try new classes and its a great way to stay on target talk about our PR’s and celebrate the fitness wins.
System 2: Schedule the classes in advance
Class Pass is a great tool because you are forced to schedule your classes in advance. Some of the more popular classes fill up quickly so you want to plan a week in advance to reserve your spot. The variety of classes and services that are available with class pass is another great feature you can do a different type of class or visit various studios every week if you want. If you cancel less than 24 hours before the class there is a charge which is even more of a motivator to not cancel and stick to the plan not the mood.
System 3: Schedule rest days. Recovery is key when you are working out.
For my rest days I usually plan to work on things for 99Finds, so I don’t feel like I’m just rotting on the couch. Pushing your body to the max when weight lifting and attending classes can be great but recovery is just as important to allow. your muscles to rest.
Now I’m Injured
As of Feb 19 all those systems went out the window, I could not sit or stand with out feeling pain, there was a major discomfort even sleeping and I made an effort to just stand most of the time so I wouldn’t have to sit and irritate whatever was happening. After seeing a chiropractor several other issues were highlighted that accompanied this major injury and she recommended slowing down for the remainder of the month. Unfortunately, I needed to put a hold on my classpass and pilates memberships. The ability to “try out” a class would inevitably mean that I could easily push myself harder than I should and that would lead to worse injury. Pilates can be great for recovery but again, the classes that I attend are not restorative so that also needed to go on pause.
After much thought I made the tough decision to stick with one yoga class a week and go back to traditional weight lifting. An important note is this decision came with much discussion, my provider weighed in on how I could go about staying active without irritating the injury and my fitness friends were very encouraging with ideas for low impact ways to stay active. At yoga, I have utilized my blocks more than ever and when something feels uncomfortable I simply add my blocks to bring the ground closer or skip the movement. For weights I stuck to mostly arms and upper body movements until I got the ok to do leg workouts. The weight workout consists of only dumbbells so I could drop them at any time if something got too uncomfortable.
If you come across this post and you are newly injured I would recommend asking the following questions:
To your provider: What am I allowed to do or not do? My workout routine is very important to me is there something you would recommend I try while recovering?
To your fitness friends: My doctor doesn’t want me to do XYZ do you have any recovery workouts up your sleeve for (insert injury type here).
What is allowed? Is walking allowed? Stretching? Mobility Exercises? Its a huge change but I have gone on longer walks daily with my dog and even though its not the same it feels good to simply move, get some fresh air and get off my couch.
Is there another hobby that you can give some extra attention to?
There are about 2 more weeks left for my hiatus and while I was planning to be well into 10k training by now that is not the case. My pain has subsided 90% of the time and there several changes I made in my day to day that ensures I am balancing my weight evenly. You never notice how much you lean to one side of your body until someone stops you at every turn (shoutout to my chiro). This experience has reminded me that everything in my body is connected and when my spine is not in alignment there are no amount of classes or exercises that can put that in place. So much of our lives are not ergonomic and that intesifies the pain when you do have an injury. Overall, taking this injury seriously is the best decision I made all year, the changes to my posture and weight balance I made will hopefully stay with me forever and I won’t wake up in pain for no reason!
