Injuries suck, Even the most minor injury can derail progress.
Last weekend my family and I went to my parent’s house in Connecticut. By family I also mean my sisters and their kids, which makes a total of 10 kids running around. It was a great weekend, and I love playing with them. I pride myself on being the fun uncle. On Sunday, an intense game of soccer broke out. My super competitive 8-year-old niece tried to steal the ball and kneed me in the calf. A couple of hours later it blew up and I could barely walk. Strange injury, but it happens
Safe to say deadlifting, squatting, and running is out this week. I have been focusing on upper body and core work. Not going all out, it’s not worth the risk of making anything worse. The priority was just to stick to my routine and stay active.
I have seen this type of thing happen many times before. Something interrupts a great routine and off the wagon you fall. Once you fall off it can be tough to jump back on.
It isn’t always injury that causes this back slide. It can be anything that interrupts the routine. You or the kids getting sick, a business trip, vacation, a schedule change, a busy time at work, moving, really any additional stress.
In order to avoid this, your routine has to be rock solid. Understanding the importance of a routine and doing everything you can to keep it intact is paramount to success. I am not a drill Sargent, I understand stuff happens. Be aware that when the routine is broken for whatever reason you have to get back into it quickly. An object at rest tends to stay at rest, an object in motion tends to stay in motion. This isn’t just true with the laws of gravity. The longer you are Inactive, the harder it is to get moving again. I am sure many of you can relate, I know I can.
My wife is a teacher so when the school year ends I struggle with this most. A few years ago, I was preparing for a personal training certification. Everything was going great. I was studying daily, I had developed a great routine. Clients in the morning, workout, study, come home. Then when her school year ended, I wanted to hang out with my wife more and the wheels fell off. I thought “I’ll just study later, it will be fine”… I didn’t open a book for months. I did finish the certification, although it happened 6 months later.
There is nothing wrong with spending more time with my family, I just should have handled it differently. Even if I altered my routine, reduced the study days of amount of time I was doing it. Something would have been better than nothing.
When you suffer an injury or setback make sure to stick with your routine. Your program might not be exactly what you want it to be, but making sure you hit the gym as planned will help maintain the consistency you have worked hard to develop. If your doctor tells you to shut it down and stop working out for a while, of course you should listen. Just be aware you are going to have to make it point to get moving again when you are well enough. Good habits are everything. If you aren’t careful bad habits can creep on you.