The Importance of Strength Training in Injury

Often with injury we take ourselves to the doctor or physiotherapist to help us return to sport or activity. This is an important part of early stage rehabilitation but how many people see it through to the end?
As a protective mechanism strength maintenance can reduce sports related injuries by a third and overuse injuries by half (I would count running & cycling injuries as overuse). This strength maintenance comes in Pure Strength, high load/low reps, and Power Training, moderate load/high velocity/low reps, modalities. This throws up 2 points:

1) Are you protecting yourself from injury with strength training incorporated into your weekly schedule?
2) When injured are you looking to maintain strength/fitness where possible or do you give up on exercise to recover?

Progression in exercise is important and the strength continuum takes you through several stages for safe activity and this same principle applies after injury:
🔺 Endurance ➡️ Hypertrophy ➡️ Strength ➡️ Power
Working with a professional to help you safely navigate this process is massively beneficial for sport and general health, especially as we get older.

These same principles apply through injury as well, so the further you let your strength reduce down this continuum the longer it will take to work your way back up to being ready to get back in to sport.
Rest with injury is not stopping all activity but is actually modified activity, allowing you to keep training at full intensity for the body parts or muscles that aren't injured. This will drastically shorten recovery times for return to sport.

Keep active and seek help with injury and don't give up strength training once injury has healed.