Listen to Your Body (I Did Not)

Hey {{first name | reader}},

It’s Tuesday, which means your weekly fitness check-in. Welcome to Week #17. Last week was my first full week back in the gym, and it was great except for Thursday, when I was feeling just a little off and managed to drop a 45lb plate on my foot from about waist-high. It hurt a lot. I was hoisting plates onto the leg press at the start of my routine— my lower hypertrophy day. Struggling with the pain I had a choice to make. Stop, pay attention to the injury, perhaps go to urgent care, or finish the workout. 

With 8 exercises, 24 sets, and about 250 reps ahead of me, I made what was probably the wrong choice. I powered through the workout. It hurt, but I could still stand on my foot, and the snug fit of my shoes would keep the swelling down. If it was really bad, I promised myself, I would go to urgent care after the workout. I finished the training session, slow-walked home, and contemplated going to urgent care, but I had jury duty, and a small window to go to urgent care and get to jury duty on time, and I was going to be sitting all day anyway.¹ If it was really bad, I’d go to urgent care afterward. I didn’t go, but I did ice and elevate my foot when I got home.

What should be clear, is that I am terrible at managing injuries. I've had a lot of them, and unless they are particularly debilitating, as in so painful I can’t run, walk, or lift, I keep at it.² What this means is that some acute injuries have become chronic pain that has actually limited my progress, so this week I want to talk about what one should do when they injure themselves or they are ill.

First, don’t keep doing the thing that hurts you. If the pain persists one should go to urgent care for an xray to make sure that there are no broken bones. Even without the broken bones, it’s best to go slow especially if one’s competitive days are over. Rest it, ice it, wrap it, and elevate it (RICE— Rest, Ice Compression, Elevation). Take it easy for a couple days. 

Serious injuries take a longer slower time to recover, and for older athletes (ahem) they take even longer. One doesn’t have to stop all activity, cross training— walking or cycling can replace running. Continuing to stretch is healthy, and if the injury is to the legs, one can still continue upper body exercises. 

I should have given myself the time to recover instead I rushed back into training and risked further injury. Easy to say, harder to do, especially when you're in the habit of pushing through, and you're just getting back from a vacation.

Question: How do I know if I should push through an injury?

Answer: The short answer is if it hurts don’t do it. The more nuanced answer is, if the injury affects your movement in any way, you shouldn’t do it. There are minor injuries that you can shrug off, but if one isn’t sure err on the side of caution and consult a medical professional.³

Myth: No pain, no gain

Reality: Some discomfort while training is acceptable. I used to say if running bores you push harder, then you’re not bored, you're thinking about how much it hurts. But that’s the good pain, the pushing past a mental limit type of pain. The pain that comes from injury is your body telling you something is wrong. Pushing past that warning could make things worse.

I was icing my foot on the couch, which meant dinner had to be low-effort. Turmeric has actual evidence behind it as an anti-inflammatory (the active compound, curcumin, has been studied for joint and muscle recovery), so I made golden milk, which sounds fancier than it is:

Warm on the stove, whisk until smooth, drink it. Takes four minutes. It won't fix a broken toe but it's better than ibuprofen on an empty stomach, which is what I probably should not have taken.

Worth Your Time: InsideHook asked sports scientists and rehab specialists the question you're probably asking yourself mid-workout: when do you push through pain, and when do you stop? The answer is less "no pain no gain" and more traffic light. Worth reading before your next session — and definitely before dropping a 45lb plate on your foot.

Map Your Workarounds
If you have a current injury — foot, knee, shoulder, whatever — spend five minutes before your next session writing down what you can do, not what you can't. Hurt your foot? Upper body day. Tweaked shoulder? Leg day. The goal is to keep the habit alive without aggravating the injury. The worst outcome isn't a modified workout. It's skipping entirely because you couldn't do the thing you planned.

Stay strong,
{{first name | reader}}

P.S. Bubba was wrong. Ice it.