Whether it’s an acute injury, such as a sprain that happens during casual sports, or something built up over years of repetitive motion such as at work, injuries can become a serious obstacle to living your life at its fullest and hold you back from doing the things you love to do.

Returning to a more normal lifestyle after an injury is always the ideal goal. However, for many people, it can feel overwhelming and even frustrating. We depend on our bodies day in and day out, and when they aren’t working to their full potential, it can be challenging to chart a course toward rehabilitation and recovery on our own.

Fortunately, with over 28 years of working as a physiotherapist, I’ve had the chance to help many, many people overcome even the most severe of injuries, helping them move easily and live pain-free once again. In this guide, I’ll share some of what I’ve learned over the years about safely resuming physical activity after an injury.

Rest the Injury, but Stay Active

Rest is an essential part of recovering from an injury. Without proper time off, the damaged part of your body won’t have time to fully heal, possibly lengthening your recovery time or even causing further damage down the line. For this reason, I usually recommend that you take ample time to rest the injured part of your body.  

However, resting your injured body part doesn’t mean putting a stop to all physical activity! In most cases, it’s completely possible (and highly recommended) to keep up with exercising other parts of your body. So if you’ve strained something in your leg, you can still focus on working upper body strength. If you’re dealing with a shoulder injury, you can still work on strength and flexibility in your legs, back, or core. By keeping up with general exercise during your recovery, you’ll not only stay in the habit of keeping an active lifestyle, but you’ll also be ensuring the rest of your body is staying strong, ensuring the injured areas are supported during recovery.

Listen to Your Body

As you start to return to your usual activities, it’s absolutely vital that you pay attention to your body. If it’s been weeks or months since you last swung a tennis racket, it’s normal to not have the strength and endurance you had prior to the injury. Focus on doing what you can, and take a rest once you start to notice discomfort before it gets to a level of pain. Your body does a great job at letting you know what it needs, so pay attention to the signals it gives as cues for your return to activity post-injury. 

Understand the Body’s Reaction to Pain and Injury

Although it’s crucial to listen to your body, you should also be aware of the way it can react after dealing with an injury. Your body’s job is to keep you safe, so it’s quite common to experience heightened sensitivity as you get back in the swing of things post-injury. 

While you shouldn’t be forcing yourself to push through extreme pain (this will often just lengthen your recovery time and even cause further injury), you also shouldn’t stop exercising at the first sign of uncomfortableness. Part of the recovery process is safely pushing through the initial difficulties. While it might be uncomfortable in the moment, it’s ultimately all to help in your long-term recovery. 

By working with a professional physiotherapist, you’ll begin to learn where the line between serious pain and mild discomfort is, identifying your body’s limits, and getting more comfortable at pushing them when it’s safe to do so.

(Re)Start Slow

No matter what kind of activity you’re getting back into, it’s essential to take it slow as you return. Injuries take time to heal, even if you’re no longer experiencing the pain or lack of mobility you once were. If you immediately jump back into your old training routine, you run the risk of worsening your injury or preventing it from healing efficiently, which will ultimately hurt your progress much more than gradually reintroducing your usual routine.

Gradually increasing the intensity and frequency of your training will help until you’re back to your pre-injury levels. This can be frustrating, as it might feel like you can do more. In the long run however, gradually increasing your activity will help you return with more confidence.  Please consult Dana for the specific timeframes needed for your issue/injury as it can vary greatly. 

Focus On Warm-ups and Cool-downs

Having a period to ease in and out of physical activity is always a good idea, and this is especially true when you’re recovering from an injury. Your injured body parts are more delicate than usual, so it’s always a good idea to ease into each session with dynamic stretches, multiplanar movement, and other warm-up techniques. These techniques help prepare your body for the exercise that’s about to come, which will improve performance, reduce pain, and help you recover more quickly.

The same goes for ‘warming down’ from your exercise sessions. This gives your body a chance to reset after a difficult training session—invaluable for those healing from an injury. Working a proper warm-down routine into your exercises will give you a jump-start on recovery, ensuring you don’t have to deal with excess pain or discomfort as you return to your activities post-injury.

Work with a Physiotherapist and Stick with Your Exercises

The best way to recover from a physical injury is with the help of a trained, experienced physiotherapist. Not only will they diagnose the exact source of your pain, discomfort, or stiffness, but they’ll also work with you to develop an in-depth treatment plan that takes your needs, abilities, and goals into account. Over time, they’ll help you develop a personalized return-to-activity routine that pushes your limits while ensuring you don’t suffer further injuries as you recover. 

There are two parts of recovering from an injury with physiotherapy. First, there’s the sessions you spend with the physiotherapist. Here, they’ll use any number of techniques and mobilities to help you recover, including strengthening, stretch therapy, fascial release therapy, and more. These act as the foundation of your recovery, offering you the chance to regularly check in and make adjustments as your recovery progresses.

The other important aspect of physiotherapy is the work you do between sessions. These exercises will be provided by your physiotherapist, and will be responsible for the bulk of your recovery. While the sessions with your physiotherapist are great, they don’t make up for all the other time you spend between each visit. That’s why it’s vital to work with your physiotherapist to make a treatment plan that works for you, and then ensure you follow through on it. 

By approaching both elements of physiotherapy seriously, you’ll ensure a swifter recovery, helping you return to your usual pre-injury activities much faster.

If you’re ready to leave pain, stiffness, and discomfort in the past after an injury, I’m here to help. You don’t have to deal with the myriad of issues that come from untreated physical injuries—book an initial consultation today and start the conversation about the best movement forward.