Creating an Injury Recovery Plan

Creating an Injury Recovery Plan

You don’t have to be fit to join Kaia. Many women join us who have suffered an injury or are in need of rehabilitation following a debilitating illness that has left them weak. In this case, recovery depends upon you having a solid plan in place. To achieve the best results and get back on your feet again, sometimes quite literally, you need to look at your approach to getting better, your lifestyle and your exercise routine too. With the help of medical professional advice as well as support from fitness experts here at Kaia, your injury recovery plan can soon be slotted into place and working well.

The quicker you deal with an injury in a positive way, the more likely you are to not only recover but to do so more quickly than if you simply accepted your problem and did nothing about it. Sometimes though, an old injury that you were not overly concerned about or aware of at the time it happened can flare up, causing problems with your mobility, flexibility and performance. If injury is holding you back, then it’s time for an injury recovery plan:

  1. Medical advice – Before tackling most things in life you need to know what you’re dealing with. Don’t surmise or spend your time Googling your symptoms, but get real professional advice from the appropriate medical expert. Unless you’re au fait with physiology and physiotherapy you need a definitive diagnosis. Recovery from tendon damage is totally different than ligaments that are torn or resemble stuck together spaghetti.
  2. Rehabilitation – Depending on the nature and extent of your injury, you may need specialist rehabilitation. This could involve stretching or massaging the problem area or perhaps strengthening the supporting muscles to allow any injuries to heal without undue stress.
  3. Future expectations – Regardless of what you want, find out what the professional medical and rehabilitation specialists predict for your recovery. Are you going to be able to fully recover or will there always be some limitations? What is the expected recovery time? What are you likely to be able to do in terms of sports performance, lifestyle and exercise? What, if anything is going to prove challenging?
  4. Personal feelings – Find a quiet space and really focus on your injury. Where does it hurt and how intense is the pain? Is the discomfort constant or when you perform a certain action? How does this impact your life and in what way? Be aware of how you view your injury and how it makes you feel and affects your life.
  5. Fitness experts – Quality exercise, especially when it is personalized to your needs, is often an essential element of the rehabilitation process. Discussing your injury diagnosis, rehabilitation, and personal feelings about your situation with qualified fitness professionals means that a suitable training schedule can be created that is going to protect you and help you heal too.
  6. Physical goals – You don’t have to want to run a marathon to want to recover from a leg injury, however being clear about what you want to achieve on a physical level is an important part of devising a plan. It may be, for example, that a particular sport has played a part in your injury and that you need a different style of recovery plan to be able to perform well in this sport in the future.
  7. Recovery timeline – Pull all the information you have together and create a realistic schedule and calendar for reaching specific goals or milestones. Make sure this is not a wish list but a solid timeline based on facts and a sensible yet proactive plan. Setting unrealistic goals and deadlines is a sure way to fail and may hinder progress too.
  8. Progress monitoring – Recovery is about improvement, and with any progress it pays to have some type of monitoring system in place. This allows for a change of plan or some helpful tweaking here and there. Recovery is a personal journey and this means it’s not entirely predictable. Working with a fitness trainer who is aware of and involved in your recovery plan, means you can keep tabs on your fitness status.

Do you want to learn how fitness can play a role in your injury recovery? Get in touch for a confidential chat about your personal journey