How to Deal with Fitness Injuries

If you’re active at all, you’ve most likely experienced a sports injury before. It really comes with the territory. All of us have likely experienced something like pulled hamstrings, busted knees, or sprained ankles and wrists. Some of us have experienced worse injuries, like broken bones and dislocated joints.

I had the unfortunate experience of dislocating my shoulder back in April of 2018, which makes the topic of dealing with fitness injuries pretty near to my own heart. When I dislocated my left shoulder, it put me out of my normal exercise routine for at least 6 months, and being that I’m one who enjoys being fit and active, being sidelined for so long played with my mind and my confidence a good bit. The thought did cross my mind from time to time that my shoulder was ruined and that I would never be the same, but thankfully, I was able to transcend those thoughts and recover from the devastation of snatching a shoulder out of joint.

I want to use my experience with recovering from my shoulder dislocation to share with you how you can deal with fitness injuries of any kind, minor or severe.

My Injury

I dislocated my shoulder participating in an obstacle course event in April 2018. Without going into all the nitty-gritty details, the injury happened at the very beginning of the course. I was moving too fast, climbing through some convoluted monkey bars-type obstacle, and in an instant, a miscalculation and a slip of my right hand put all of my weight on my left arm, and almost instantly, I knew something was very wrong.

I couldn’t move my arm normally, and when I pressed where the shoulder usually was supposed to be, there was soft, hollow flesh. As much as I wanted to deny it, I’d dislocated my shoulder. I blew it. Real bad.

I’m not what you would call an “accident prone” person. Aside from minor injuries, I rarely experience injuries. Even being a very active person, I never injured myself significantly until now, and as my wife drove me to an urgent care center, two different things ran over and over through my mind:

• I trained for months for this event, and now I have the type of injury that can put folks on the sideline for good. How will I ever do pull-ups and dips again?
• What is it gonna be like to have the doctor snap my shoulder back into joint?

My three-year-old daughter was in the car with us, and I still remember her saying “you just gotta be more careful, daddy.” My wife tried her hardest not to laugh, and I laugh thinking about it now, but I was in so much pain that I just couldn’t.

It was several hours before I was able to get my shoulder set – I won’t go into all of that – but when the doctor finally saw me, it took them about 20 minutes of working with my shoulder to get it back right because the dislocation was so bad. They even contemplated putting me to sleep. All I could do was just sit there. It hurt. Even with a few shots to numb the shoulder area, it still hurt.

Down, but not out UNLESS you believe you are

Pardon my language, but dislocating my shoulder sucked. I was used to exercising most days of the week, and was doing literally hundreds of reps of body weight exercises throughout each week. In an instant, I was faced with an injury that would surely put me on the sidelines for months. I went from 100 to 0 in a second.

Now, I was left to contemplate my recovery. Would my shoulder be the same? Would I be able to do pull-ups and dips again? Would I dislocate my shoulder again?

These are the thoughts that I had, but I can honestly say that my predominant thought – thank God – was that I would get back to my previous form, no matter what.

It’s true. Sometimes people have injuries that knock them out of sports that they enjoy, but I was determined to not take ‘no’ for an answer…one, because I enjoy exercise, and two, because I could not accept the idea of an injury totally knocking me off of my game.

You might be someone who has been demoralized by some bad injury you experienced. Here’s the thing. Your body may not be the same as it was pre-injury. On the other hand, though, another thing to consider is, what would happen if you think instead about recovering as best as you possibly can? The truth is, you don’t know how well you will recover unless you actually try to recover.

In a sense, it’s easy to throw in the towel and to say you’re done, but please, don’t go out like that. Choose to believe that you can get better. If you do, you can at least guarantee that you will be better than you currently are.

Get started on an injury recovery plan

After I’d worn an arm brace for 6 weeks or so (I even had to sleep in the thing), I visited an orthopedic doctor who agreed that I could try physical therapy for rehabilitating my shoulder for a time. He said that if that did not stabilize my shoulder sufficiently, I would need to consider having shoulder surgery to repair the labrum in my shoulder.

I knew real quick that I didn’t want surgery, so I determined that I would dedicate myself to physical therapy.

Shortly thereafter, I began visiting the occupational therapist two times a week for several weeks. I didn’t miss any appointments. I wasn’t late to any appointments. I didn’t leave any appointments early. I was dedicated and consistent.

Once you’ve made up your mind to rehabilitate whatever your injury is, you gotta choose a solution and go for it. Don’t half-do it. If you’re going to do physical therapy, do it. If you’re going to try some of your own exercises – make sure you check with a professional – try them. Go ahead. But don’t do the “start-stop” stuff.

Whatever injury recovery plan you choose, give it a real chance. A lot of people claim that “this don’t work” or “that don’t work,” but often, that thing didn’t work because the person wasn’t dedicated to it. Whatever exercises, stretches, ice packs, heat pads, natural anti-inflammatories, etc. that you need to do or use on a certain schedule, do what you have to do without fail. I like to say that you should try anything new for at least a month to see how it’s working for you. Anything less and you haven’t given it a fair try.

Stay with it to maintain recovery and to prevent re-injury

After my several weeks of therapy were complete, I gradually got back to some of my previous calisthenics work. Push-ups were the easiest to get back to. I was literally scared to get back into the chin-ups, but I eased very slowly into them, gradually lengthening my range of motion and constantly monitoring for any unusual feelings in my shoulder.

It was another two years until I got back into pull-ups. I probably could have done so earlier, but again, it took for me to build my confidence up to actually attempt them again.

What I want to emphasize here, though, is that, as I gradually increased my exercise repertoire again, I made my shoulder rehab exercises – which I had done during physical therapy – a part of my regular warm-up. I didn’t stop doing them after PT. Why didn’t I stop? One, because my occupational therapist recommended I continue them to further stabilize my shoulder, and two, because I determined that I wanted to give myself the absolute best chance for never injuring my shoulder as I previously did.

After you’ve successfully followed your injury recovery plan, stay with it in some form. Maintain some level of the stretches and exercises that you learned to get your body back so that you can maintain your gains and help prevent the same injury from happening.

Again, this is a matter of being patient, disciplined, and not short-circuiting the process. At the end of the day, a strong, healthy body that does what it’s supposed to do is what you want. Sometimes, we want to get back into our former exercises so much that we’re willing to skip a lot of steps, and we end up injuring ourselves again. Sometimes, that next injury ends up being the really bad one that really stops you from resuming your former activity. Don’t let that be you. Be patient. Be disciplined. Continue the exercises. Continue the stretches.

Support your recovery nutritionally

It’s important to note that nutrition is a very important part of injury recovery.

In general, a healthy diet that is based on vegetables and includes well-sourced foods from the other food groups is what you need for a healthy baseline. Such a diet not only helps you maintain a healthy body and a healthy weight, but it also helps your body to heal injuries the way it should without excess inflammation.

Speaking of inflammation, the inflammatory process is necessary for healing from injury, but in a body that persists in an inflammatory state from inflammation-promoting lifestyles – eating poorly, not getting enough sleep, being stressed out, smoking, etc. – the inflammation that would usually help heal the injured body part might actually instead cause it to persist. You don’t want that. You want your immune system to be balanced so that it does what it needs to do, and nothing more.

Balance your immune system by eating a whole foods diet based on vegetables and not too much meat, maintaining a healthy weight, getting good sleep, not stressing out, getting plenty of vitamin D from the sun, and upping your intake of natural anti-inflammatories such as ginger, garlic and green tea.

I really hope this helps you if you’ve lost hope for becoming active again. You can have hope if you believe that you can overcome. Trust me, it’s how I overcame my significant shoulder injury. If you have any thoughts, questions or concerns, I invite you to comment below. You can also e-mail me at shawn@yourhealthatthecrossroads.com. And finally, if this article was encouraging to you, please share it with someone else.