Injuries: Positives and Negatives

I can’t believe how many people in the blog world are injured right now! It’s really crazy actually. We were all probably so sick of winter that as soon as the weather started to warm up a bit, we got really excited, and maybe over did it too fast. I know I have definitely learned my lesson and have realized the importance of rest for the body. This knee injury is really the first (and let’s hope last) major injury I’ve had (meaning something that’s stopped me from being able to exercise) and over the past 2 weeks I’ve really learned a lot from having it. There has been both positives and negatives.

Aside from the obvious negatives of having and injury (i.e. PAIN!!!), there were definitely some underlying negatives that I didn’t consider when I first got injured:

Negatives:

*Guilt/Worry

~Being injured definitely brought up some feelings of guilt and worry in me. Not being able to workout, definitely made me anxious sometimes and I really got upset because I thought I would lose all my strength and stamina that I had worked so hard to maintain. I was especially worried about my running abilities going down the tubes. I kind of had to force myself to take a step back and look at the situation in a more positive light: this injury is only going to be for a tiny chunk in my life, not running or doing cardio for two weeks isn’t gonna kill me, and in fact it will prevent me from being hurt in the long run! I can always work back up to the mileage I was at, but I can’t run again if my knee’s are ruined from over work…..just gotta look at everything in perspective.~

*Comparison Trap

~I have to admit, it’s pretty hard reading about other people’s amazing (and fun!) workouts while you can’t be doing the same yourself. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself with other people’s accomplishments and feeling bad about yourself for not being able to do the same. But this is another time where I had to reassure myself that it was okay to give my body rest (and that that’s in fact what it NEEDED) and that I have to do what’s best for my me and health, not feeling like I need to keep up with the rest of the world.~

*Missed Movin’

~My whole family is so active! We bike, run, and walk everywhere….so it was really difficult to be so immobile ( I can only imagine what someone with a long term lower body injury goes through…..it must be awful). Like I mentioned a few times on the blog, I was getting antsy!  I hate sitting for long periods of time and kept feeling the need to get up and do something…soo distracting!~

Positives:

*I had to get CREATIVE!

~Having a lower body injury meant really having to get creative with workouts! You never realize how much you use a certain part of your body until you can’t use it anymore. Running and really any fast paced cardio was completely out of the question because that’s how I injured my knee to begin so I really had to think about ways to get around my knee issues. Exercise videos, strength training (more on this below), biking, and core work became my best friends over the last 2 weeks! I had to adapt a lot the moves in the exercise videos I usually do, but overall I was still able to get a pretty good workout in from them.~

*Built some muscle!

yeah....I'm definitely not THAT strong, but I have noticed an improvement from the weight training!

 

~Like I said above, I focused a lot on strength training these past two weeks. Weight lifting isn’t my favorite (I’m definitely a cardio lover!), but I do know how important it is and it definitely helped me maintain my strength while injured. In the next few days, I’m gonna share my favorite strength training moves that helped me stay fit without hurting my knee.~

*Learned the importance of rest days

ice, heating pads, and motrin have been my best friends on rest days!

 

~Before getting injured, I had never taken voluntary rest days (only took them when there was absolutely no way to fit in a workout). This is probably one of the reasons I got injured to begin with! I know now that giving your body a day of to rest and recuperate is just as important and working it out!~

*Learned to listen to my body more closely

~ Some days I frankly don’t feel like exercising. I’m sure most of you have had these types of days too (possibly? ) when you are just tired, unmotivated, and busy! Prior to getting hurt I would usually just brush these feelings aside and continue with my planned workout. But since my knee was hurt and I actually had a reason to skip a workout on days when I was having these feelings on top of everything else, I realized how good it felt to give into my body once in awhile. And ya know what I noticed? The next day, when I actually wanted to workout!, I had a better more successful sesh because I wanted to be doing it, not because I felt I had to!~

*Became more grateful for having my health

~Seeing how tough it was for me to go just a short 2 weeks with an injury, I gained a lot of perspective about those who have to live like this all the time. I am so lucky to have myself and all those feelings of guilt over workouts and worry about my physical condition completely went out the window, when I consider how hard it would be to be permanently disabled. It really humbles you and makes you realize how stupid it is to worry about appearances and workouts when it is only a small aspect of your life and that in the long run a week or two of missed workouts will do nothing to change the outcome of your life. Being a well rounded, healthy (both physically and mentally) individual is so much more important!~

Tell me: How do you deal with injuries? Have you ever experienced any of the pos/neg’s I went through?

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Wow! This post became really wordy….sorry about that! I will definitely be back tomorrow with some fun pics and possible a…VLOG! So stop back tomorrow for some fun!

Happy Weekend!

 PS: Check out my twitter page and Formspring(<<I love answering questions!) if ya get a chance!