Shout-out to this amazing young athlete who worked with us to develop a safe plan to keep training and making gains while he rehabs from a wrist injury. 

Training Through Injury

Many athletes completely stop training when they have an injured limb. But that can set you back by weeks or months.  Continue training!

1. If you injured an upper body limb, you can still train your lower body!  If you injured a lower body limb, you can still train your upper body!
2. Training the non-injured limb has also shown to have a cross-education effect whereby the reduction in strength in the injured limb can be limited, and in some cases strength of the injured limb can be maintained and even improved using training at the appropriate intensities.  This will allow you to come back stronger and get to 100% faster than if you just stop training all together!   

Obviously it’s important to eliminate any exercises that could further harm the athlete.  With this athlete shown here we had to eliminate a ton of exercises – including anything where his hands are on the floor (like push-ups), gripping an implement (barbell, dumbbell, etc), or even jumps which could further hurt him due to the risk with each impact. 

For more on the Cross Education Effect see here:  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21924681/

(Hendy AM, Spittle M, Kidgell DJ. Cross education and immobilisation: mechanisms and implications for injury rehabilitation. J Sci Med Sport. 2012 Mar;15(2):94-101. doi: 10.1016/j.jsams.2011.07.007. Epub 2011 Sep 15. PMID: 21924681.)