“With an injury that won’t allow you to move much, it’s certainly a good move to gain a little knowledge.”
Few things are more upsetting for a fitness junkie than an injury. With any injury comes the question:
Can I still work out? How much can I lift or how far can I run?
Even more questions arise if the injury is significantly serious – like a back or neck injury that involves the spine. The worry of never being able to train at all comes to mind with this type of injury.
How we deal with injury physically is one thing, but dealing with it mentally is something else altogether. The body has a remarkable capacity to heal itself. Time off and a good deep-tissue massage can do the trick for many of the injuries we experience.
However, there are those injuries that require the expertise and knowledge of a medical professional. These “more serious” injuries can sometimes lead us into a state of depression. We can’t do that thing we enjoy doing. We start to get sad the longer we have to “be still!”
Because we are sometimes defined by our fitness, we can begin to think that we are “less than” or that we are falling behind in society. These thoughts have to be kept in check before they lead us down the road of self-pity and depression.
The downtime can and should be used to exercise the mental muscle.
Grab a good “non-fiction” book. Sign up for a short course to get those CECs we all need. If reading isn’t your thing, there is always the option of audiobooks. Either way, with an injury that won’t allow you to move much, it’s certainly a good move to gain a little knowledge.
