I have slow-healing/chronic injuries to both wrists and an ankle. Prior to my wrist injuries, I had been working to do some yoga to try to establish something resembling a routine but, that’s not possible to continue any time soon.
Nearly every site that I’ve found has advice on exercises to do if an arm OR a leg OR one’s back is injured but none that I’ve found so far address multiple injuries.
Right now, the only things coming to my mind are:
- crunches
- forearm planks
- bicycle kicks
Anyone have any suggestions for others or resources to dig into?
Update: Thank you all for the advice. To be clear, I have already seen specialists and am waiting on an appointment with a hand and wrist specialist. Just impatient when the slow rate of healing and the timing of the wrist injuries.
This really is something you should discuss with a professional physical therapist. You can do a lot of damage when doing the wrong excercises too early
From top of my head, you can add superman, side plank, bridge, fire hydrant, donkey kick. Maybe you can attach weights to your forearms too for the arm muscles.
Bicycling and water jogging are both great but the former is far more accessible. Flat pedals are better if you’re injured/recovering since you can adjust your foot positioning (if clipless aren’t dialed in right you’re kinda locked in and can exacerbate injury, and if you don’t unclip in time you fall over). Padded gloves to keep vibration from aggravating things. I was in a boot for 6 months from a gnarly stress fracture but my doc cleared me for biking and I basically lived on a bike.
Also range of motion, biking helps for that since you’re constantly articulating your ankles and loosening up the ‘rust’. Trace the alphabet with your toes a couple times a day to stay on the up and up.
Check with doc ofc, and might help to get bloodwork so see if you’re deficient in anything and also see if there’s some root cause if you’re injury prone. Turns out I had a vitamin D deficiency so I started taking a ton of D+K2, couple years later I got back into running and building up mileage pretty realistically and went couch to 50k in 8 months, before that I was always getting injured. Not saying it’s specifically that, could be lots of things or nothing, but in my case I found that thing out and the sky was the limit afterwords. It’d be cool if it was some overlooked thing like that for you
Swimming? You don’t have to swim fast to have good energy expenditure
Catch
both wrists
Just go for it bro /s
Moms spaghetti
I was at the Mayo Hospital’s own chronic pain rehabilitation clinic, and have all the PT exercises they had their patients all do if interested.
Look into AthleanX. The guy who made it was a physical therapist for a MLB team, and everything in it is basically straight out of the PT manual.
Start with very low weight, and only move up when you can do 4 sets of 25 reps without any fatigue.
I don’t regard AthleanX as a good source of information. He made a name for himself creating fake things to worry about and none of his programs help people reach a definable goal.
While I don’t know about how he made a name for himself, that has little to do with his workout programs.
The claim that the programs don’t have a definable goal is flat out false. AX-1 is intended to improve general athleticism and fitness, and AX-2 improves on it. The TNT add on can be purchased if you want to do additional work on a muscle group.
AX-1 is a well balanced program that gives focus to strengthening supporting muscle groups, which isn’t something I’ve seen in a ton of programs. For example, essentially each week has some form of rotator cuff specific exercise, which I’ve never seen emphasized.
For other goals, they have a short quiz that will give you a suggestion of the paths to take.
All I can say is AX-1 allowed me to postpone my torn labrum surgery for 3 years, and is very likely why my recovery was half the expected time. During my PT, every prescribed exercise was something I had done in the program. (I got too confident in year 3 and pushed my muscles too hard, which is why I had to finally have it).
“General athleticism and fitness” is not a defined goal.
How long have you been doing his programs and in that time, what have you accomplished?
Dude is also clearly juiced out of his fucking mind.
Using steroids doesn’t mean you don’t know what you’re talking about
True, but if you’re being disingenuous about your own results, you’re not going to be setting the best example to others.
Many other fitness influencers have called him out hard, alongside openly sharing their own relationships with steroids. I don’t know enough to say his advice is right/wrong, but if you can’t be honest about yourself, I can’t trust what you’re selling.
Are you able to swim? Braces necessary?
Braces, yup. Fortunately they are waterproof so, might be an option.
I’d second swimming or in general doing stuff in water. The difficult part will be to find a place to do that which can accommodate your particular needs, i.e. if you don’t wanna actually swim, does the pool have area for that, is it not full of kids (not just kids) who won’t pay any attention to you and potentially hurt you while playing
Basically any movement or prolonged pose becomes it’s own exercise.
“wall sit” might not be good for the ankle.
What you can do for your back, are exercises laying on your stomach, and then lifting and moving arms and legs. Up and down, can slow or faster, just holding them up isn’t easy either. You’ll figure out which poses tire and train which muscles. If you do it straight it’s more for those along your spin, if you spread your arms it’s more for the shoulders.
Side leg raises are probably another idea that shouldn’t put strain on your injuries.
The rest kind of depends how much you can even just stand. Maybe something involving Therabands?
This is when you bite the bullet and talk to a trained professional.
Currently waiting on the appointment. Just impatient.
Do yourself a favor and wait.
There’s a good chance you could make your condition worse.
Last month, I had a shoulder replaced that I injured in March. Seven months to get the surgery, another month before PT could start.
Waiting while in pain is brutal, but this is not a DIY project.
Not to mention, if this affects multiple limbs, there’s a very real possibility you could e.g., fall while exercising and dramatically worsen the situation.
Go to physical therapy if your insurance covers it or you can afford it. They’re not omniscient but they do have some training and experience treating this stuff.
i was a personal trainer for a bit and honestly if you were my client id ask you to go get guidelines from a physical therapist first. swimming and light calisthenics should be fine, but listen to your body first and do not push it/make it hurt
Like others have said. If you have injuries or body irregularities go to a medical professional. Do not trust some yahoo on the internet.
Like others have said: go see therapist, do not try following random advice online. That is coming from someone having to deal with A few lifelong health issues of their own.
Also, start small and slow. This was huge, for me. And allowed me to do so much I never imagined I would be able to, on the long run.
You want to know things before meeting the therapist. Maybe read a few things like this:
https://www.physio-pedia.com/Rehabilitation_in_Sport
But ofc I agree with the others: listen to what your therapist recommends.
