Continuum Performance

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Exercising While Injured
Eric Belliveau • Oct 24, 2017

This was a topic that I came up with and wanted to talk about a while ago. I'm now reminded of it because of a few people that I work with have had some minor issues lately, a few other people in the CPC community have had issues, oh yeah and Geoff may very well have broken something in his hand this week. So needless to say I thought this would be a good time to quickly address this topic.

Bottom line, can you work out or exercise while you are or have an injury? Yes, and I'm sure most of us have at one time or another.

I'm not going to take a long time to explain things and get all technical or scientific here. I'll just give you my few guidelines and my opinion on the topic. Bottom line, can you work out or exercise while you are or have an injury? Yes, and I'm sure most of us have at one time or another. What we have to be very careful of though and this is where people don't put enough thought into what they are doing and end up getting re-injured or find that they are healing much slower than they should or than they expected, is what the actual injury is and what are you going to do for exercise.

Seems pretty straight forward and almost to simple or obvious, but you'd be surprised. The following points are what you have to think about and take into consideration when returning to or continuing exercise.

  • The degree to which you are injured or the severity of the injury. A sprained ankle is different than a broken ankle, a muscle strain is different than a torn muscle, etc.
  • The area that is injured, or more specifically the body part. If your leg is hurt can you focus on upper body? Sure but still be care of what and how you do it because certain upper body movements still require some lower body recruitment.
  • What exactly is injured? Is it muscular, is it tendon or ligament, bone, other soft tissue or something completely different or a combination of any or all of those.
  • When did the injury take place, how long have you had symptoms, what is currently being done to address the issue? Working with an injury when it first happens is going to be different if it's already had a chance to heal for a couple weeks.
  • What other "treatment" steps are you taking? Physical therapy may be needed, you may be doing that or other activities throughout your day, it all adds up and you don't want to over due it. Plan and space your activities appropriately around your injury.

Moral of the story and what I want everyone to take away from this is that you need to be very aware of what you have going on and you need to be careful/smart about what you are doing. If you have multiple "health care providers" (Physical Therapist, Massage Therapist, Personal Trainer, etc) you need to know what they are doing, what they are prescribing, and most importantly share the information about the injury with all of them. You can definitely train and still be active while injured, but it must be handled and planned appropriately or you'll suffer the consequences.

Stay Healthy!

Mike

The Meat Hangover

By Eric Belliveau • 07 Oct, 2020
When it comes to taking meat out of your diet, some people have the idea that they will only see positive changes immediately following this choice. While those positive changes are definitely part of the deal, so is an adjustment period for your body.

We're Trying

By Eric Belliveau • 23 Sep, 2020
We were all thrown on this crazy ride together. Emotions were running high but so were patience, empathy, inclusion, and respect. Most of us could rally behind the #WeAreInThisTogether manta. We wanted to do right by each other - donate to charities, lend a hand, check-in on one another. Do our part. As the days turn to weeks and the weeks into months these dispositions decayed rapidly. I know that this Quarantine order has been going on for a long time. I know that a great number of us do not agree on the why. I know an even greater number of us are “over it”. I am painfully aware of the difference of opinions surrounding the pandemic. It is impossible to NOT be aware of this. This leads us all to frustration, anger, resentment, and the feeling that you are not being heard. Very real and very human emotions! It is okay to feel this way. I am not only writing this from the perspective of a fellow struggling human. I do find myself struggling with everything I mentioned above. Not just daily but multiple times a day. My ability to focus has been challenged by my worry. My ability to create time for myself and focus on self-care has been derailed for fear of other things becoming more pressing. I work on this every day. I am not only writing this from the perspective of one of the business owners who were never given a playbook for this. For weeks on end I thought WTF happened to the business and how would our model need to change and remain viable, how each business owner had to either weather a period in which we were completely shut down or allowed to operate under capacity restrictions, etc. The unknown of what the timeline would bring and whether we would be able to continue our dreams or make an extremely difficult decision of not continuing. This still haunts every one of us daily. I AM very much writing this as a service provider! I am writing this as an impassioned human who genuinely loves what I do for a living. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to have built a career surrounding something I get excited about every day. I am making a stand for all of us that make their living in the service industry. To the receptionist, hostess, waiter, cook, dry cleaner, teacher, technician, barista, utility worker, automobile service technician… It is truly impossible to be inclusive of everyone here.  No one human mentioned above asked for this ‘situation’ we are in. We are sure as hell trying to provide a level of normalcy, service, care, and happiness to the lives in which we choose to serve. With added restrictions, added expense decreased capacity and the fear of being fined or shut down for doing it incorrectly, everyday.

The Meat Hangover

By Eric Belliveau • 07 Oct, 2020
When it comes to taking meat out of your diet, some people have the idea that they will only see positive changes immediately following this choice. While those positive changes are definitely part of the deal, so is an adjustment period for your body.

We're Trying

By Eric Belliveau • 23 Sep, 2020
We were all thrown on this crazy ride together. Emotions were running high but so were patience, empathy, inclusion, and respect. Most of us could rally behind the #WeAreInThisTogether manta. We wanted to do right by each other - donate to charities, lend a hand, check-in on one another. Do our part. As the days turn to weeks and the weeks into months these dispositions decayed rapidly. I know that this Quarantine order has been going on for a long time. I know that a great number of us do not agree on the why. I know an even greater number of us are “over it”. I am painfully aware of the difference of opinions surrounding the pandemic. It is impossible to NOT be aware of this. This leads us all to frustration, anger, resentment, and the feeling that you are not being heard. Very real and very human emotions! It is okay to feel this way. I am not only writing this from the perspective of a fellow struggling human. I do find myself struggling with everything I mentioned above. Not just daily but multiple times a day. My ability to focus has been challenged by my worry. My ability to create time for myself and focus on self-care has been derailed for fear of other things becoming more pressing. I work on this every day. I am not only writing this from the perspective of one of the business owners who were never given a playbook for this. For weeks on end I thought WTF happened to the business and how would our model need to change and remain viable, how each business owner had to either weather a period in which we were completely shut down or allowed to operate under capacity restrictions, etc. The unknown of what the timeline would bring and whether we would be able to continue our dreams or make an extremely difficult decision of not continuing. This still haunts every one of us daily. I AM very much writing this as a service provider! I am writing this as an impassioned human who genuinely loves what I do for a living. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to have built a career surrounding something I get excited about every day. I am making a stand for all of us that make their living in the service industry. To the receptionist, hostess, waiter, cook, dry cleaner, teacher, technician, barista, utility worker, automobile service technician… It is truly impossible to be inclusive of everyone here.  No one human mentioned above asked for this ‘situation’ we are in. We are sure as hell trying to provide a level of normalcy, service, care, and happiness to the lives in which we choose to serve. With added restrictions, added expense decreased capacity and the fear of being fined or shut down for doing it incorrectly, everyday.
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