How to Spend Your Time Recovering from an Injury

Injuries are the worst part of running, and while they’re usually avoidable, most runners end up with an injury at some point. While injured, it’s always best not to run in case you make your injury worse, but there are plenty of things you can do to pass the time and speed up recovery.

How to Spend Your Time Recovering from an Injury

Before doing anything, the most important step to take is to fully evaluate your injury, so you know what you’re dealing with. Depending on the type of injury, the way you recover will be very different, so it’s important to get an accurate diagnosis. While you may be tempted to sit back and rest, playing online games keeps you occupied, while recovering.

Here are some of the best ways you should be spending your time while recovering from an injury:

Keep Your Fitness Up with Cross-Training

While you may be injured and unable to run, that doesn’t mean you have to stop training completely. There are plenty of other ways to train that will allow you to maintain a good level of fitness while not making your injury worse. Swimming and aqua-jogging are two of the best forms of exercise when recovering from an injury as they’re very low impact. You can gain a lot of fitness from swimming, and aqua-jogging is a great way of improving your running form.

Cycling is another exercise you can do while injured, and it has a great impact on your fitness. You can cycle outside on a real bike or use one of the stationary bikes in your gym. Elliptical machines are also useful and use a movement more similar to running, although you should be careful that it doesn’t affect your injury. For lower impact exercises, walking and hiking are ideal.

Maintain Your Healthy Habits and Introduce New Ones

It can be easy to lose motivation when injured, especially if you’re not able to get up early and go for a morning run anymore. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t continue your routine and maintain your healthy habits. It’s also a good chance to introduce new ones. Just because you’re injured, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be maintaining a healthy diet, keeping your usual sleep schedule and avoiding wasting time when you could be productive. That said, you should still get plenty of quality rest and relation.

If you struggle to maintain good habits while injured, you might be interested in the concept of priming. This is where you start the day off as you intend to go on, with the first thing you do in the morning getting your mind in the right state to have a productive day. You can start your day with a little exercise to get you focused and ready.

Practice Strength Training and Yoga

A lot of runners will often neglect other areas of their body, which can lead to muscular imbalances and a greater risk of injury. If you want to be healthy, fit and strong, you should ensure you get the right training. Focusing specifically on areas that are weak for you is a good start. Many runners often have weak hips or glutes, and targeting these areas will help make you stronger and healthier when you finish your recovery.

Aside from targeted strength training, yoga is a great addition to your workout routine, helping to strengthen your body and core. You can find a lot of yoga instructional videos online to help, and it’s really easy to get started. Different yoga routines can be focused to improve overall strength, flexibility or mobility as well as your breathing and fitness.

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