You Are Not Broken

So you're injured? You're not broken. That is the most important lesson for anyone training for athletics or aesthetics. The game of life is going to present you with a thousand different adversities, so you need to know how to deal with them.

Whether you have an ankle sprain, a bad knee, hurt shoulder or broken wrist, the rest of your body is still perfectly fine. I see it all the time: someone gets hurt and they stop training. Now, why on earth someone gives up so easily after any length of time trying to meet a goal is beside me.

When life packs a punch, you punch back harder.

While one body part is healing, the rest of your body should be putting in the work. If your shoulder is hurt, you can still train your biceps, triceps, forearms and grip strength. Focus on your core, your legs, your other arm and cardio.

So it's your ankle that's swollen, caught up in a boot or straight up broken… good thing you have two of them! One perfectly good leg, two perfectly good arms and a two-sided torso to train. Sounds like you still have your work cut out for you! The same goes for your shoulder, elbow, hip, knee or wrist. You CAN train around your injury.

First off, make sure you have seen a professional to diagnose your injury and inform you of your limitations. Let them know that you'll be training around it, and they'll give you the do's and don'ts of exercising. The biggest thing to take away from your visit is that you have to let it fully heal. I see it all the time (and I'll even admit I have been guilty myself): people dive back in too soon. You truly have to be 100% before getting back into exercising the recently healed area. Nothing is worse than receiving a 4–8 week heal time, and having that turn into 12–14 weeks because you did too much too soon. Let it heal.

Next, start to focus on training your mental strength. Having an injury can be mentally taxing. It can make you feel defeated and discouraged. You have to remember: it's just a small setback to that one area, not to your whole body. Your body is incredible — it has the capabilities of repairing what is broken. Now it's time for you to be mentally tougher than you ever thought you could be. Push yourself to new strengths in other areas of training. Hate cardio? (Me too.) Here's your chance to work on one of your weaknesses. It's going to be a struggle. Grind through it — promise yourself 15 minutes and push yourself to 20. You have to persevere. It's a fight of mind over matter.

Lastly, create attainable goals — bite-sized goals — and not only reach them, but exceed them. You'll be amazed what you can do if you trust yourself to get to the little goals. Inch by inch you'll begin to see progress. You'll gain bits of confidence that allow you to trust yourself to go one step further the next time you try. Whenever I feel like quitting, I remind myself of how awesome my body is and how capable my limbs are. The last thing you need is to have your mind be the limiting factor in training.

You may be injured, but you have to push everything else to exhaustion, including your mind. If you finish a workout with some gas in your tank, and you're not completely exhausted, mentally and physically, you are not reaching your potential. If you're not training to be the best version of you, mind and body, you need to consider again why you're training in the first place.

Train your mental strength, because no one else can do that for you. Learn to create attainable goals so that you can feel that sense of accomplishment that will push you further the next time you set foot in the gym. Train around your limitations, and remember…

You are not broken.

Coming back from an injury or a long layoff? Don't guess your way back. Start with my free Old Injury Audit — it sorts out exactly where you are and what your first move should be. And if pain is part of your picture, our in-house physical therapist, Dr. Chris Ellis at Dynamic Naples, works right here in our building in Naples — same team, same plan. When you're ready to start rebuilding for real, the Rebuilt Strength Blueprint is the step-by-step plan I built for exactly that comeback.