Regardless of how long we have spent training, somewhere down the line, an injury is picked up… So you have to spend some time away from the gym, roads, or bike.
Injuries are not only debilitating, but they’re also annoying! They have a habit of striking us down! Just as you’re picking up momentum, gaining consistency and close to optimal performance… For most, we want to spend minimal time away and get back to training and competition as soon as possible.
As part of this process, completing some rehab exercises as treatment is enough if an injury is caught early enough. Speaking to a specialist and drawing on their expertise for the best way to rehabilitate your injury and get back firing. However, some of us might refer to online PDF’s… Or scour through social media for quick information with reference to the best exercises to remedy a particular injury.
This throws up the term ‘specificity’ and typically goes far beyond progressing exercises with increments in reps, sets and load.
There are many considerations that should go into what exercises an injured person should be doing. I will outline some below in this post:
1. Type of exercise
Largely, our sport or form of exercise will heavily dictate what kind of rehab exercises we want to be incorporating in a recovery plan. Sporting requirements differ across sport and exercise and movement patterns and mechanisms will need varying focus. The rehab for a meniscal tear in a long distance runner may look different in comparison to a soccer player. Why? The steady state, linear, aerobic dominance of distance running will place different demands on the knee in comparison to the explosive, multidirectional nature of soccer.
2. Health
Too quickly we consider the physical capabilities of an athlete before exploring how other area’s of health can impact the rehabilitation of an injury. Do we consider the mental aspect of being injured and the knock on effect to factors such as motivation, anxiety and confidence? Clinical health also plays a role as conditions such as menopause, arthritis and diabetes will impact exercise too.
3. Physiology
This is a really complex and I cannot address it in one blog post but ultimately, we should be assessing the current fitness levels of the injured person and how this might change the exercises we might prescribe an athlete. There is no one size fits all approach and starting points of rehabilitation could change depending on factors such as muscular endurance, strength, power and flexibility.
4. Biomechanical structure
Again, another complicated component to consider but necessary. Can our athlete load confidently through the connective tissues to execute a particular exercise effectively? If not, we could be causing more harm than good. The injury will obviously effect this but ensuring progress is sensible is a key metric of how we would progress and transition an athlete through their program.
5. Lifestyle factors
In my experience, this is the single biggest contributor to exercise prescription. For most, things such as childcare, time, social events and enjoyment will illustrate the quality of adherence to a rehab program. You should definitely consider these factors when thinking about exercises to make up a rehabilitation program.
You should acquire all these through open and honest dialogue. Without such, being able to build the relationship required to really hit the sweet spot – where all of these factors and more overlap – becomes difficult and will be exhibited in the results of the recovery.
So, as an injured athlete, or as a coach, physiotherapist and/or rehabilitator, think of this things next time before jumping into an answer!
