Training With an Injury

When summer began I had a fantastic five day split planned. My plans were that by the end of summer I would have burned fat and gained muscle. These are common plans, unfortunately they came screeching to a halt after I broke my hand. I went to the doctor and he said that the only solution was surgery (my fault, as I had not thought it actually broken and delayed a hospital visit for two weeks). One week from that visit I had hand surgery, and precisely six weeks after that (in five days since I have published this) will I be getting a second surgery to remove a metal wire in my hand which was helping my bones fuse together. The doctor insists I should not strain my hand for a further four weeks after this second surgery. So, in the end, I will have spent a total of three months without touching a weight.

I must have gone through all the stages of grief in the taxi cab on my way back home. Three months and no gym? What kind of cruel joke was this? I had summer workout plans! What was I do to now? Well, by the time I stepped back into my apartment I had some idea of a plan. I couldn’t use my right hand, and I didn’t plan on using my left as I didn’t want to create a weird imbalance, so I wrote down all the exercises I could do. After all, I had a semi professional commercial gym membership, it shouldn’t be too hard to find some specific machine to use in order to work around my injury.

My list was as follows:

Ab exercises (no hanging leg lifts but there are so many variations I wasn’t worried about that.)

Legs (leg press, leg extension, hamstring curl etc)

Walking…

And that was it. I had some resistance bands at home but quickly gave those up as bands are poor at hitting the legs and using them fully requires the use of both hands. Attempts to hold one end with my undamaged left hand and draw the other around my wrist caused my hand to twinge in discomfort so I gave that up as well.

When working around an injury I would say the most important thing is to not give up hope. There were several days I just lounged around on the couch, watched movies, and ate junk food. Do not allow yourself to become comfortable doing this. I recommended that even if your body is so damaged that you cannot lift a single weight, establish for yourself a baseline. My base line was simple: eat low carb/high protein, and also walk as much as possible. The high protein will protect muscle loss, and the low carb paired with daily walks will keep your trim and prevent fat loss.

If you read this then thanks, I plan to continue writing posts every week again. I will not just be writing about fitness but other topics such as books and video games. Stay tuned for future updates.