Injuries are inevitable.
If you train long enough, something is bound to give. Amongst long-term trainees, it's almost a running joke that if at least one part of your body isn't in pain then you're not training hard enough.
Nobody wants injuries, but on the other hand, expecting your body to feel like a million bucks when you're training hard is unrealistic. Your body likes to stay the same, so when you're applying enough stress to grow new tissue, build new blood vessel networks, and reach strength levels above the norm, it's not going to go along without an occasional tantrum.
But they don't have to be a coffin nail in your training career. Understand that every injury is a chance to learn some lessons that you can apply in your training in the future. A neglected area in your body, applying too much stress too soon, the causes can be numerous. Feeling sorry for yourself helps no one, and there's almost always a way to train around an injury.
Pain is complex. There's both a physiological and neurological component. Your knee might hurt when you barbell squat past a certain depth, so naturally, you'll limit the range of motion.
It's why you might also experience tightness in muscles. Your brain is trying to protect the knee, because it doesn't know what is going to happen once you bend it past a certain depth, so it will "pump the brakes" by increasing the tonicity or tightness in certain muscles to prevent that from happening. Think of it like a protective mechanism. But, if your brain learned to restrict your range of motion and increase a pain response to keep you safe, it can also learn to do the opposite.
1) Don't train through pain
This isn't about being hardcore. I've done this more times than I can count and it never ends well. In fact, it usually ends with having to take even more time off from certain lifts or body parts than if I'd erred on the side of caution.
The only way your body will learn that it doesn't need to be in pain is if it isn't constantly being reminded of it. If you keep picking at a scab until it bleeds, it's going to keep scabbing over and over and over.
Find out which movements cause pain and which movements don't. Then focus on the ones that you can safely do without pain. It's easier to hold onto muscle and strength than it is to build it, so in this case, doing something is better than nothing.
2) Graded exposure
Using our earlier example of knee pain when squatting, a barbell might cause issues at the moment. Scaling back the movement until you find a squat pattern that you can do without pain is step 1. This might look something like this:
Barbell squat --> Front Squat --> Goblet Squat --> Bodyweight Squat to 90°
You may have to take it back to bodyweight and retrain the squat pattern in a way that 1) doesn't cause pain
2) allows you to go past parallel
3) builds confidence (don't underestimate the psychological component of coming back from injury)
As a rule of thumb, adding volume before intensity is a good way to grade exposure with movements during rehab. So in the case of the bodyweight squat, session 1 might look like 2 sets of 10 reps, and session 2 might be 3 sets of 15. The intensity is kept the same but we're increasing the volume by adding the total number of reps, thus increasing the tissue tolerance.
Once a bodyweight squat is taken care of, then look to add load (intensity) but start with a lower volume and gradually build that up. Rinse and repeat until you're back where you want to be.
3) Look after your nutrition
You might be asking how diet factors into a training injury, either chronic or acute.
Every injury comes with a degree of inflammation. It's very typical for an injury to cause people to stop training altogether, and when this happens, usually positive dietary habits get tossed out like a baby with the bathwater. It's natural I suppose, as habits tend to go together with specific actions and healthy eating may be very closely tied to training, but this is not the time to eat your feelings.
Limiting processed foods, alcohol, refined sugars, high amounts of saturated fats and all pro-inflammatory foods is beneficial. Some inflammation after an injury is beneficial for the healing process, but soon after we want to limit foods that add to this to speed up the rate of recovery. Read up on some tips on what foods to eat to that effect by checking out some past articles below:
Injuries are part and parcel of training. Embrace them, accept them when they happen, and look at them as a challenge to overcome that will teach you a thing or two about your body and mind.
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