Hello everyone, it’s Jose!
I’ve been injured for the last 4 months and I think I’ve learned a lot from this experience. The most important thing to do is to rest properly. My mistake was that my shoulder was paining, so I took painkillers before a workout so that it didn’t pain so much and trained hard like this for 2 weeks. The painkillers don’t heal muscle tissue, they just numb the pain so, taking painkillers while injured is the worst mistake you can do. It will make you think that it went away but then you will destroy your muscle tissue like that. I didn’t know this so I destroyed the connective tissue in my right shoulder joint. I have not been able to do Bench Press or any exercise that includes the shoulder for over 4 months.
I recommend going to physiotherapy as soon as possible, the physiotherapist will know what to do. If you want to try to heal it at home, you need to apply ice in the early stages for about 20 minutes, and then switch to heat treatments. Rest that area and try to train around it. For example, I have an injured shoulder, so what I do is I do squats 3 times per week combined with light recovery shoulder work. If you have an injury in your lower body, train your upper body. The most important point here is don’t stop exercising. Exercise heals. The only injury you should rest completely and can’t train around is a lower back pain.
When it stops paining, you will enter a reconditioning phase which means recovering your strength. There will definitely be a strength loss of around 20-30% of your lifts. So take it easy and work up to your level slowly. If you rush you will get injured again.
The supplements that I recommend when dealing with an injury are:
- Glucosamine 1,500 mg – 2,000 mg. Everyday.
- Vitamin D3 – 5,000 IU. Every two days.
- Multivitamin. Everyday.
- Fish Oil – 1,400 mg. Everyday.
Stay safe and be careful with your training!
Jose
