How I Fix Injuries and Ouchies

The Takeaway: Reduce pain from injuries by foam rolling, training the opposite movement, and strengthening with lighter resistance.

My Simple Approach to Injuries

I consider any type of pain an injury. Injuries are inevitable, and you are going to get hurt if you haven’t already. No fun, but when you know how to handle them, they get better. Injuries are a massive topic with enough information to fill an entire library or two. Outside of modifying your form, exercises, or physical activities, here’s my simplified approach to injuries.

  1. Foam roll the injured area and surrounding areas before and after every physical activity. Think of this as DIY massage therapy.
  2. Train opposing movements. Determine which movement causes pain, then train exercises that do the opposite. For example, if pushing hurts, do pulling exercises. If an overhand grip hurts, try an underhand grip. Improper or imbalanced movement is often the cause of injuries, so this step will likely require expert guidance.
  3. Strength train injured muscles using lighter weights. This means bands, bodyweight, and baby dumbbells. Your ego may hurt at first, but we are simply training the weakest link by giving it only what it can handle. When I had an overuse injury on my elbow, I dropped from 50 pounds to 5 pounds. I eventually came back stronger.

Just so you know

  • A day to a week of rest may be all you need. Never ignore pain. Injuries rarely go away on their own. They only get harder to treat later.
  • Be patient, but diligent in addressing injuries. Don’t give up.
  • Do not quit movement altogether. Movement is medicine, and not moving doesn’t produce a better outcome.
  • When treating an injury, some level of pain is expected, but make sure it’s tolerable (nothing that makes you cry).
  • Don’t stretch a strained muscle. It is already overstretched, and stretching it delays recovery. Stretching a strained muscle is like picking a scab. Let it heal.
  • Ice is for pain management. Ice slows inflammation, the body’s natural way of protecting and healing. Use ice only if your injury inhibits your daily life. Otherwise, I like to do a combination of heat and ice called contrast therapy (ahhhhhh, feels nice).
  • See a massage therapist. This is one of the fastest ways to reduce pain and speed up healing.
  • If you see no improvement week-to-week on your own, see a strength coach (like me), athletic trainer, or physical therapist.
  • Once your injury is better, keep up with the same exercises you did to help it, but less frequency is ok. This is preventative/maintenance.

If you’d like to discuss any current injuries or how you can become more resilient to injuries, reply or set up a free coaching call.