Injuries Happen: How to Keep Training When You’re Injured

Regardless of what the Instagram wannabe influencers tell you, sometimes injuries just happen.

Yes, there are things you can do to reduce your risk of injury. Good programming, sensible progression, appropriate recovery, good technique and managing training load all matter.

But that’s a conversation for another day.

Because even when you do everything right, injuries can still happen.

The question is what you do next.

When injury happens, most people go one of two ways

I’ve seen it countless times.

Someone gets injured and decides:

“Fuck it, I’ll carry on.”

They ignore the pain, modify nothing and hope it goes away.

Or they go completely the other direction:

“I’m injured, so I can’t train.”

They stop everything.

Neither approach is particularly useful.

There is usually a much better option sitting somewhere in the middle.

Training with an injury doesn’t necessarily mean doing nothing

Being injured doesn’t automatically mean you need to stop training altogether.

It means your training needs to change.

The first step is to identify what currently aggravates the injury and remove or modify the training that is making things worse.

That doesn’t mean abandoning your entire programme.

It means asking:

What can I still train?

If squatting aggravates your knee, perhaps heavy squatting isn’t appropriate right now.

That doesn’t mean you suddenly have to stop training your entire body.

If pressing aggravates your shoulder, perhaps certain pressing movements need to be removed temporarily.

That doesn’t mean there is nothing else you can work on.

Good injury management is often about finding what you can do rather than focusing entirely on what you can’t.

Use the opportunity to work on weaknesses

This is where an injury can actually become productive.

Most people have things they know they should work on but continually put off.

Maybe your mobility needs attention.

Maybe your trunk strength is poor.

Maybe your upper back is a weakness.

Maybe your conditioning has been neglected.

Maybe there are movement patterns that need improving.

An injury can force you to spend some time addressing those areas.

Instead of seeing the period as lost training time, use it to build something that will ultimately make you a better athlete.

Adapt the training, don’t abandon it

One of the biggest differences between following a generic programme and working with a good strength coach is the ability to adapt.

A programme is a plan.

It isn’t a contract.

Your circumstances change. Your training needs to change with them.

This is particularly important for people training for strength, Strongman or general performance.

You might have a competition coming up. You might have specific lifts you are trying to improve. You might simply enjoy training and don’t want to lose all your progress.

The answer isn’t always to push through.

It also isn’t always to stop.

The answer is to find the appropriate training stimulus for where you are right now.

That might mean changing an exercise.

It might mean reducing load.

It might mean changing volume or intensity.

It might mean temporarily focusing on a completely different physical quality.

The programme should serve the person.

The person shouldn’t have to force themselves to fit the programme.

What should you do when you’re injured?

There isn’t a universal answer because every injury is different.

But as a general principle, you can start by asking:

1. What is currently aggravating the injury?

Identify the movements, loads or training that are making things worse.

Don’t simply keep doing them because they’re written on the programme.

2. What can I still train?

Look at the rest of your training.

Can you train another movement pattern? Another body part? Another physical quality?

There is often considerably more available to you than you initially think.

3. What have I been neglecting?

Use the opportunity.

Work on mobility, technique, weaknesses, conditioning, trunk strength or other areas that could benefit your long-term performance.

4. What does progression look like from here?

The goal isn’t simply to find something you can tolerate today.

The goal is to gradually build your capacity so that you can return to more of your normal training.

Don’t confuse training through discomfort with training through injury

There is an important distinction here.

Training doesn’t always feel comfortable.

Hard training is supposed to challenge you.

But deliberately aggravating an injury because you believe you need to “push through” isn’t toughness. Sometimes it’s simply poor decision-making.

Likewise, completely avoiding movement because you’re worried about making things worse isn’t necessarily the answer either.

This is where individual assessment and appropriate professional advice matter.

If you have a significant or persistent injury, get it assessed by an appropriately qualified healthcare professional. A strength coach can then work alongside that advice to modify your training and keep you progressing where appropriate.

Good coaching is about adaptation

This is one of the reasons I don’t believe coaching is simply about writing a programme.

Anyone can give you a list of exercises.

The value of a coach comes from understanding why you’re doing them, monitoring how you’re responding and knowing when the plan needs to change.

Injuries are part of that process.

Sometimes the best coaching decision is to remove an exercise.

Sometimes it’s to change the variation.

Sometimes it’s to reduce the load.

Sometimes it’s to focus on something completely different for a period of time.

And sometimes it’s simply recognising that pushing harder isn’t the answer.

The aim is always the same:

Keep moving forward.

Even if the route temporarily looks different.

An injury doesn’t have to stop your progress

Sometimes you have to take a step sideways before you can move forwards again.

That’s not failure.

That’s training intelligently.

You don’t need to pretend the injury isn’t there.

You don’t need to stop everything.

You need to adapt.

And that’s exactly where good coaching can make a difference.

Strength is built over the long term. One difficult training block, one missed lift or one period of modified training isn’t going to define your progress.

The goal isn’t to train perfectly.

The goal is to keep building your capacity to perform, adapt and keep going.