How to blend rehab with regular training!

Welcome to this week’s newsletter…

As we get older we often need to adapt our resistance training programs.

Older injuries can start to creep up on you, and newer injuries can be harder to shake off.

NEVER despair though, as resistance training is an excellent tool for better movement, joint protection and a healthy body for life.

Understandably however you might still want to train to look and feel good.

You don’t want to spend the rest of your life mainly doing “rehab and prehab” exercises.

And the good news is that you don’t need to.

You can still keep training fun whilst you give your body what it needs.

We are going to look at 3 different ways you can still focus on performance or body composition related goals…

Whilst reducing injuries and staying healthy longterm.

On a side note I will refer to rehab and prehab exercises as PRIORITY exercises moving forwards…

Use your session warm ups strategically…

There’s a great opportunity to get in some priority exercises for your shoulders, upper back, low back or hips in the warm up section.

Preparing your body to train PROPERLY goes a long way to staying injury free.

Putting priority exercises at the end of the session often makes them an after thought and they just don’t get done properly.

Mix in these exercises with your favourite mobility drills too, get creative and make circuits out of them.

Just be mindful however that you don’t overly fatigue any supporting muscles before moving on to bigger exercises.

For example, doing shoulder rotator cuff exercises and then going into heavier pressing is not advisable as those muscles stabilise the shoulder joint.

If in any doubt do more of your upper priority exercises in your warm up before you train lower body, and vice versa.

This offers a nice opportunity for you to train certain muscles and exercises properly early in your session, without impacting the rest of your session.

Implement alternating sets or include “active recovery”…

Alternating exercises simply means you perform a set of one exercise, rest for 30-60s, then perform a set of an alternate exercise, and repeat for desired number of sets.

Active recovery means you perform a main exercise, rest 2 mins or so between sets but use the time to do some light exercises or even mobility drills if that is a priority.

The key is to use alternate exercises or active recovery exercises that DO NOT impact the other exercise!

Here’s two examples how this might look in a training program:

Alternate set system:

1a) Incline DB press/3 × 8-10 reps/30-60s rest

1b) Low back/hip or knee priority exercise/3 × 10-12/30-60s rest

Active recovery system:

1) Split squat/3 × 6-8 each leg/2 mins ACTIVE rest

Perform 90 seconds of different banded shoulder exercises done in a circuit

Hopefully you can see here that planning your sessions effectively helps time management.

You get in everything you need and want, without needing to be in the longer than you need to.

Start putting any BIGGER exercises later in your sessions…

This can help spare your joints as allow you to be thoroughly warmed up before you move to the main exercises.

For example, I have always found performing upper back exercises like rows and pulldowns BEFORE pressing exercises helps the shoulders.

The shoulder joint feels well warmed up without overly fatiguing the chest or pushing muscles.

Regarding lower body doing some hamstring or adductor exercises can help before you move on to exercises like leg presses, squats or split squats.

I personally like exercises like leg curls and the adductor machine…

The hips and knees are thoroughly warm and you feel more “activated”.

Just a word of caution about doing anything for the low back if you plan to barbell squat or deadlift in the session.

The spine will be under load so you don’t want the supporting back muscles fatigued.

Focus more on the hip and knee with exercises that don’t fatigue the lower back.

The overall takeaway here is that you don’t need to put your main exercises first in your session.

And strategically putting them later in your session means you can still use the exercises you enjoy…

You just get to more time to appropriately warm up to them.

To wrap up…

Understand there’s always going to some sacrifices when you are trying to manage injures whilst you focus on your training goals.

However, hopefully you now have a few ideas on how to plan your training accordingly.

Get creative, think outside the box a little and understand there’s no one size fits all approach.

ALWAYS focus on what feels right, what works or what is safest for you.

If you would like to know more about working with me and have any follow up questions on the above.

Reach out to me on LinkedIn, OR email me personally at [email protected].

An assessment is the best way to plan the most effective AND safe training program for you moving forwards.

For now thanks for reading today, and stay tuned for the next edition of Train For Life next Saturday!

Daryl