Like so many times before, Captain Skip Brown Jr. is flying a scheduled morning flight from Sydney to LAX. He’s done this exact same flight, with this four engine Airbus A340 plane a hundred times, and counting. As with the previous flights everything’s going as expected, smooth. If you don’t count the shitty weak coffee, the cabin crew is serving this morning.
Four hours into the flight though things take a rather upsetting turn. Without a warning one of the plane’s four engines shuts down with a bang.
He reaches for the CAB button on the audio control panel to share the disappointing news with the passengers as well as the cabin crew who are busy problem solving what the fuck went wrong with the coffee today. Miguel, the chief of cabin crew on today’s flight, is adamant that it’s the beans.
The captain clears his throat, “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. It’s a bit unpleasant, but we’ve just super recently lost one of our four engines. Not sure what happened, but it’s annoying. Anyway, a plane with only three working engines is not worth flying with. I just want to go home and sit on my couch and watch Netflix. And definitely not fly this plane anymore. A piece of shit that it is.”
Captain Skip Brown then does the only reasonable thing he can think of, he turns off the remaining three engines and starts a gentle descend with the goal of gliding the A340 into the Pacific Ocean. “Only three working engines left,” he mutters to himself. “No point flying now. Can’t wait to get home and watch Narcos Mexico.”
Ok, so besides the weak coffee and Narcos Mexico, none of that makes any logical sense. Captain Skip Brown’s A340 still has three perfectly working engines. The plane would fly as normal with two, perhaps only one engine.
Skip Brown Jr.’s approach to flying is on par with how people look at training when injured. “I can’t do it 100 percent so why do it at all”. Here’s why ditching your body into the Pacific, aka your couch, when injured is not smart.
Training while injured will help you to maintain your strength levels
You might lose some strength, but training will definitely slow the speed that you’ll lose it. If your right shoulder is injured, you still have three limbs and the trunk to train. That’s over 80% of the body. What’s more, you might actually speed up the healing..
But before diving into the details of how and what to do, there are two important points to remember.
1. Injuries in this article means stuff to do with limbs
There are certain areas of the body that might be tough to find ways around when injured. Low back is one of them. Depending on what’s going on with the back it might be better to take a step back from intense training and focus on less straining activities.
It really depends on what’s going on with the back whether you need to stop training, or if modifying the program is enough. Backs are tricky, especially online.
2. If it hurts don’t do it
Regardless of the information on training around injuries, don’t do something if it aggravates the symptoms. Simple rule, but ignored way too often.
Three ways to train when injured
1. Train one side only
2. Progress by increasing time under tension instead of adding resistance
3. Find an alternative exercise with the same, or similar, movement pattern
Let’s tackle them one by one.
Train one side only
While letting the injured side to recover, you should keep training the uninjured side as normal. Not only will this help you to maintain the results you’ve gotten so far, but it will aid the healing.
A process called cross transfer takes place when training the uninjured side. It’s a neurological health-loaded roundhouse kick to the injury. The body transfers some neurological training benefits from the uninjured side to the injured one which is pretty much candy for your injury.
There’s a study somewhere about how hip replacement patients who kept training their uninjured side where able to heal quicker from their operation compared to those who stopped altogether. Candy.
If you can’t hold a weight increase time under tension
When one arm is injured, it can get complicated to load up the lower body heavy enough to get the training effect. Any two legged squatting movement becomes difficult because you can’t hold enough weight (if any) to provide sufficient training stimulus for the legs.
That’s when time under tension and single leg work become your friends. Do single leg squats (one leg needs less loading than two) with a 3-5 second eccentric phase (lowering). Here’s how a brutal set of ten would look:
5 second lower – 1 second up x 10. Finish all the reps before taking a break.
You can also use the time under tension trick when doing upper body exercises, such as a single arm dumbbell press. It means you don’t have to go as heavy and worry about how to get a big dumbbell up in the first place without helping with the injured arm.
Or worse, you might have to ask a gym “friend”. You know, the guy in the skinny singlet with a double nipple piercings who likes to talk about the unquantifiable energy of the universe. Meh.
Find an alternative exercise with the same, or similar, movement pattern
Sometimes you can’t do the original movements in your program. This could be, as mentioned earlier, a struggle to load a two legged squat, not being able to set up the landmine press exercise without aggravating the injured side, or unable to hold the trapbar. You’ll need an alternative that has a similar benefit as the original exercise.
Here are a few examples
Squat is predominantly a knee dominant lower body strength exercise. We want a similar benefit without having to load as heavy (or at all) → single leg squat with 5 second eccentric phase on each rep.
Landmine press is an upper body pushing strength exercise → single arm dumbbell press with a slight incline will give a similar training effect.
Trapbar deadlift is a lot of things, but mostly a hip dominant lower body exercise → single leg skater squat is the closest we can get.
The purpose is to keep training, even progressing, without making your program one dimensional. One exception is upper body push pull ratio. Everyone and their mum needs more upper body pulling exercises. So if you can’t press, you’ll be fine doing any form of pulling instead.
Most folks initially struggle with the idea of only training one side
They’re afraid the uninjured side will become too strong or too big. Like Quagmire walking out of the house after he discovers the internet. I understand the fear, but once you think about how much work it takes to build strength and size, this fear should become a moot point. Let’s rephrase the question.
Why would you let a perfectly healthy limb lose its hard earned strength and muscle and weaken it to the levels similar to your injured side?
If it really gets that much stronger and bigger than the uninjured side (it won’t) you can do double the work for the injured side once it’s healed. You have a strong limb, use it to your advantage.
Real example of a client with an upper body injury
Here’s what we did with a guy who had injured his right shoulder/chest in an indoor soccer match.
A1) kettlebell front Squats → single leg squats
A2) chin up → single arm TRX row, left arm only
B1) split stance deadlift → same, but loading the left arm only
B2) dumbbell bench press → dumbbell single arms bench press, left arm only
C1) single arm bottom up carry → same, left only
C2) dumbbell single arm row → same, left only
Real example of a client with a lower body injury
Here’s what we often do with a client who’s knee doesn’t love the eccentric part of squatting, or knee flexion in general. Kneeling is also often problematic.
Most of the hip dominant movement are fine though. Her programs are built around aggressively training the hinging while using the limited choices we have for training the knee flexion. Needless to say she swings a heavy kettlebell like a boss.
A1) suitcase carry
A2) med ball shot put
B1) kettlebell swings
B2) cable press with a forward step – this is our opportunity to get in low level knee work
C1) Skillmill* – her knee tolerates this well so we use it almost every session. The lack of eccentric work (you’re only moving forward) makes it money for the knee.
C2) TRX Row
Summary
Find ways to train the healthy parts of the body. Don’t let them regress to the level of the injured side. You will not only maintain more of the strength on the injured side but also speed up the recovery with neurological cross body transfer magic.
Injured limbs are usually simple to train around. Train the uninjured side as normal and increase tension when struggling to add resistance. When swapping exercises try to stick with the same or similar movement patterns. And no, you won’t end up like Quagmire by only training one side.
Things take a complicated left turn up the hill when you’re dealing with a trunk or low back injury.
Captain Skip Brown Jr. realises he’s being silly
One minute into the descent an overwhelming quantity of positive warmth rushes over the captains body. “A340 with three engines is still a beauty to fly. It’s like riding an arctic fox on marshmallows.”
Miguel solves the weak coffee riddle (it was the beans), and brews a new batch. He hand delivers it to the cockpit, placing it in the firm, warm, but cool and calm hands of Captain Brown.
The captain pushes a button on the audio control panel to contact LAX air traffic control. “Captain Skip Brown Jr’s eagle is LAX bound. Stop. Light up the runway like a Christmas tree, Santa’s coming home. Stop. And for Christ’s sake someone get Miguel a raise. Stop.”
“Also, nobody tell me what happens in Narcos Mexico. Full stop.”**
*a machine mimicking prowler/sledge. Small gym no turf space.
**I am somewhat confident this is how pilots talk.
References
https://www.strengthcoach.com/public/Cross-Transfer-and-Bad-Physical-Therapy.cfm