Fitness Rules for Successful Injury Recovery

Injuries happen – and they can happen to anyone at any time. Working with a Los Angeles personal trainer who can show you proper form is one step you can take to avoid injury, but sometimes it’s not something you can totally elude. When injuries occur, they can feel devastating. But what you have to do in those times is dig deep to discover the resilience within you to bounce back even stronger. Here are three rules that can help you deal with the mental and physical effects of injury recovery.

Listen to Your Body

Don’t worry about what happened before or what you did or didn’t do that may have caused the injury in the first place. Move on and make it a point to remember to listen to your body going forward. This can be tough, no doubt about it. When you get into the mindset of pushing your body in training, it’s difficult sometimes to stop and listen –but it’s a crucial step to recovery.

Los Angeles personal trainer Lalo Fuentes, CSCS, says, “You must trust the process of recovery. It’s OK to challenge your body, but know the line you need to stay below and don’t push it. Follow the advice of your personal trainer and medical professionals to help you recover in the healthiest way possible.”

When you’re returning to your fitness regimen after an injury, just remember to stop if you feel pain. Also, adjust your expectations. You won’t be able to dive right back in where you left off, you must give your body time to get back to the level you want it to be.

Don’t Let Setbacks Get You Down

Your Los Angeles personal trainer is in your corner and wants to help you get healthy again, but don’t let the setbacks you may experience go to your head. Learn to deal with them the right way because the road to recovery is not linear, it will have highs and lows. If you constantly dwell on the lows of the process, then you won’t move forward to be able to reach our next high. Acknowledge the challenges you face, learn, and then keep on going.

Channel Your Inner Turtle

What’s all this have to do with turtles? It’s times like this you have to admire the deliberate, slow steps of the turtle and channel that energy. If you push too hard too fast, then you put yourself at a huge risk of making your injury worse or getting injured all over again. Patience and persistence win this race – just ask your personal trainer! You don’t think they got this far without a few setbacks of their own, do you?

Lalo Fuentes, CSCS, says “Resilience is defined as the ability to adjust or recover from change or misfortune and it’s a key quality for any athlete at any level.” Injury is just one part of your story, but it’s not the only chapter in the book of your life. Keep moving forward and you’ll be back where you want to be – maybe even beyond it – before you know it.