Got an injury that just won’t go away?

Sore wrist. Irritable shoulder. Knee that complains every time you squat. Chronic injuries are frustrating because they linger right in the middle of your gains. Listen, you still want to:

• Stay strong
• Keep moving
• Hit your fitness goals

Here’s the problem:

The majority of people fall into one of two categories. They quit training all together, or they continue to train through the pain. Either way… You’re wrong.

Rest too much and you become weak. Stress yourself too much and you become ill.

The best news? There is a smart compromise. This article will teach you how to work around an injury that won’t go away so it WILL go away.

Here’s how to do it…

Inside This Guide:

1. Why Lingering Injuries Stick Around
2. The Pain Rule Every Lifter Should Know
3. 5x Ways To Train Around A Lingering Injury
4. Warning Signs You’re Making It Worse

Why Lingering Injuries Stick Around

A chronic injury is typically a cumulative injury. It doesn’t occur from one incident. It develops over time from the repetition of the same movement.

Think about it:

Every rep, every mile, every keystroke creates micro-stress on your body. Ideally your body recovers between workouts. But put enough stress on your body faster than it can recover and… you stack the damage.

And it happens more often than you would expect. Studies have found that approximately 42% of individual sport athletes struggle with overuse injuries.

But here’s the kicker…

Many delayed onset injuries never originate in the gym. They originate at work. In 2023-2024, private sector employees reported 937,620 musculoskeletal disorder cases. Of those, 484,620 resulted in days away from work.

If your injury was caused by lifting, typing or twisting at work, how you train becomes even more important. Your workouts could become part of your repetitive stress injury claim along with your doctor’s notes and recovery regimen. For that reason many injured employees consult with workman’s comp lawyers before returning to heavy lifting. Having a good record of how you handled the injury can help protect both your body and your repetitive stress injury claim.

Makes sense, right?

The Pain Rule Every Lifter Should Know.

Before you lift one pound of weight, first you need an easy scale to measure pain. Many physios teach you a 0-10 pain scale:

• 0: No pain at all
• 10: The worst pain you can imagine

Rule is straightforward. During training keep your pain at a 3/10 or less. The next morning you should feel back to where you felt before training.

If it is… You’re good to keep going.

If it isn’t… You did too much. Dial it back next session.

Low pain + steady progress = A healing injury.

Follow this one rule and the guesswork is over. Stop worrying about every little niggle. Just listen to your body for the next 24 hours.

5x Ways To Train Around A Lingering Injury

Okay, now on to the best stuff. These tips will allow you to stay active while you recover from an injury. Read through them all, choose what applies to you and apply them until you get results.

Get A Proper Diagnosis First

This sounds obvious. But lots of people skip it.

Figuring out what’s wrong with your body is like trying to fix a car without opening the hood. Your doctor or physiotherapist can tell you what’s actually injured and what movements to avoid.

So why should you care? Because tendon pain isn’t treated like joint pain and nerve pain isn’t treated like tendon pain. If you don’t have the right plan your two week injury can become a two month injury.

Train The Parts That Don’t Hurt

A sore elbow doesn’t mean you have to skip leg day.

Actually maintaining the rest of your body will help you recover quicker. Exercise increases blood flow, helps with your mood and prevents loss of fitness you’ve worked so hard to achieve.

Here’s a simple example: If your shoulder hurts, focus on:

• Squats and lunges
• Core work
• Walking or cycling

Your shoulder gets a break. The rest of you keeps getting stronger. Win-win, right?

Swap, Don’t Skip

Sometimes when you’re programming you don’t have to eliminate an exercise. You can just alter it.

Minor adjustments to grip width, angle, or range of motion can reduce stress on the injured area. Doing a barbell bench press hurts your shoulder, but lifting dumbbells with a neutral grip does not. A throbbing lower back may have no problem doing a goblet squat instead of a back squat.

Try each swap out against the pain rule. If it doesn’t exceed 3/10, you’ve found one!

Drop The Load, Not The Habit

Ego is the enemy of healing.

Decrease your weight to 30-50% of normal and concentrate on tempo. Lower weights will continue to promote strength within the injured tissue. Tendons, in particular, require light loading to heal correctly — they may actually deteriorate with complete rest.

Recover your mileage slowly after that. 10% more per week is a good rule of thumb.

(There’s that “slow and steady” motto in action again.)

Make Recovery Part Of The Plan

Training is only half of the equation. Your body rebuilds while you sleep.

Make sure you’re getting:

• 7-9 hours of sleep every night
• Enough protein to rebuild tissue
• At least one full rest day each week

Skipping recovery is the fastest way to keep a lingering injury hanging around.

Warning Signs You’re Making It Worse

Here’s something most people ignore…

Old injuries are the ones most easily re-injured. In one study examining youth sports injuries, 39% of injured athletes suffered their injury at the same site of a previous injury.

So look for red flags. Quit training and seek medical advice if you experience:

• Sharp or stabbing pain during a lift
• Swelling that keeps getting bigger
• Numbness or tingling
• Pain that wakes you up at night
• Pain that gets worse every week, not better

Note: If this is a work-related injury, inform your physician of any exacerbations as soon as they occur. It is important to keep your medical records current as to the exact nature of the progression of your injury.

Putting It All Together

Training through an injury doesn’t make you tough. It makes you smart. Train too little and lose strength. Train too much and lose years.

To quickly recap:

• Get a proper diagnosis
• Keep your pain at 3/10 or lower
• Train the parts that don’t hurt
• Swap exercises instead of skipping them
• Lower the load and build back slowly
• Rinse and repeat

And if your injury was work-related, keep in mind that your training decisions can impact your repetitive stress injury claim as well. Treat your body right, document everything and allow that injury the time it needs to fully heal.