Getting Back to Training After Injury — What It Actually Looks Like
A few weeks ago, I wrote about eating your vegetables when coming back from an injury. This time I am hoping to give you something more practical, what those veggies actually are.
So you are or were injured, the pain is gone or sporadic and now you're wondering what the hell you're supposed to do.
This one comes up a lot.
First, the thing people get wrong.
Rest for the injured area is important. The joint needs time to recover and go through its healing process. No argument there. The problem is when local rest becomes global rest. You stop using the shoulder, sure, but then you stop coming to the gym entirely. You stop moving, stop everything. Now that local weakness becomes a global one. You come back two months later and you're not just dealing with a grumpy shoulder, you're dealing with a body that has deconditioned across the board.
So we have to find an entry point.
In the high-level sports world there's a framework for this. It's called the return to play protocol. Play being the actual sport, in our case, training or pain-free living is the play. Same logic though.
Which stage are you in?
Before we get into the stages, ask yourself these four questions:
Is the area still painful at rest or with everyday movement?
Can you load it, put weight through it, use it without pain, or with only slight pain that doesn't get worse with movement?
Does it feel as strong and reliable as it did before?
Have you added all pre-injury activities back into your routine?
If yes to question 1, you're in Stage 1. If no to question 1 but no to questions 3 and 4, you're in Stage 2. If yes to questions 2, 3 and 4, you're in Stage 3 or 4.
Stage 1 — Injury and Pain Management
The area is still angry. You're working with a physio or doctor managing the local injury. This does not mean you stop training. It means you modify.
What this looks like in the gym: A sore shoulder doesn't mean you can't train your legs, your core, your conditioning. A dodgy knee doesn't mean your upper body shuts down. So as soon as you are walking pain free, you come in, you tell your coach what's going on, and between the two of you, you find what you can do.
The goal in this stage is to keep the global system as strong and conditioned as possible while the local injury heals. This makes everything that comes next easier.
Here is an example of me in early Stage 1
Stage 2 — Training with Load Management
The pain is mostly gone. You can use it. But you're weaker than you think, because the area hasn't been exposed to any real load in weeks. This is where most people rush and get into trouble.
In this phase you start way below where you were. Not where your ego thinks you should be. Way below.
What this looks like in the gym:
Knee injury? You're doing slow, controlled goblet squats with light weight instead of jumping into a loaded barbell squat. Romanian deadlifts instead of jump lunges. You're telling your coach before class so they can cue you on depth and load. No jumping, no impact, deliberate tempos.
Shoulder injury? You're doing carries and loaded stretches instead of pressing. Tempo ring rows instead of pull-ups. Your coach swaps out the overhead work and keeps everything below the shoulder line until you've rebuilt the base.
Back issue? You're focusing on hip hinging with a light kettlebell, building awareness and control before load. Deadbugs and carries instead of heavy loaded flexion.
The principle is the same regardless of injury, controlled, targeted loading of the area, progressing week by week.
The practical move? Tell your coach before every session. That's it. That's the whole job in Stage 2. Show up, tell your coach, let them help you find the right version of the workout for where you are.
Here is an example of the work I was doing in early Stage 2, you can see I am going super slow and very mindful around what I can and can't do.
Stage 3 — Reintegration
The area feels solid. You're moving without compensating. Now we bring you back into the full class environment but with a leash on, just for a little while. You want to limit uncontrolled or fast movements and stay very mindful here.
What this looks like in the gym: You're back in class, moving with everyone else, but you and your coach have agreed on a couple of modifications. Maybe you're skipping the jump variations. You're capping your weights for another few weeks. You're back, but you're not trying to set a personal best either. You're testing the area under real conditions for the first time.
This stage is short if Stage 2 was done properly. A few weeks, not months.
Stage 4 — Return to Play
Full training. Back to work. This stage blends from Stage 3 and honestly takes time and patience.
Not because the pain has been gone for a week and you got impatient. Because you hit real benchmarks. You can load the area, trust it, and move through a full session without compensating or bracing for impact. You reintroduced fast movement progressively, not gone from zero jumps to ten, but progressively from one through ten. You've progressed ranges of motion. Essentially you have tested all the angles and loads, waited a few days, had no flare ups, then progressed. Patience.
What this looks like in the gym: You and your coach check in. You demonstrate the movement that was the problem, the squat, the press, the hinge, with confidence and load. This stage is all about patience and by the end of it you will have all your confidence back.
The one practical thing that applies no matter what your injury is
Talk to your coach. Before class, not after. Every stage of this process is easier when your coach knows what's going on. They can't read your mind and they won't know you're compensating unless you tell them. The return to play framework is useful, but your coach is the bridge between the framework and what actually happens on the gym floor.
You don't need to have it all figured out. You just need to show up and communicate.
There'll be plenty of heavy sessions soon enough.
Bonus — Prevention
Preventing injury is impossible. However, the bigger base you build the better. Great prevention is creating a large movement and practice vocabulary. If all you do is one type of training, then if an injury locks you out of that practice, you are essentially locked out of movement entirely.
Over the years I have dabbled with so many practices, from Feldenkrais to barbells, dance to yoga, that I have a huge menu to choose from. By doing this, not only is my repertoire building, so is my awareness. The sharper that awareness becomes, the better I can give my body what it needs, especially when I have the tool at hand.
Moral of the story, don't get attached to a practice or a tool. Learn to use them dynamically based on need.