How to Make Rehab More Fun

Who here hates doing rehab?

It’s boring and tedious compared to your usual activities, and it’s really hard not to get caught up with all the things you’re missing out on because of your pain or injury. But when you find what works and you start seeing improvements, it makes every painstaking moment worth it. And let's face it, pain can be a pretty effective motivator.

I'm currently in the thick of rehab for some chronic knee pain that I've been dealing with for the last 3 years. It's been a roller coaster of highs and lows working with some great practitioners and getting some successes, but then having my pain come back seemingly for no reason. There's a lot of trial and error, testing and retesting, and a lot of frustration, disappointment and even giving up in some moments.

Pain, injuries and rehab can often stop us in our tracks and stall our training, making our fitness goals seemingly unreachable. Sometimes this is the case, and then we have to reevaluate our short-term goals to focus on what’s most important in the moment. Often, though, we can adapt our training to continue on those same goals, just with a few adjustments to the plan and timeline.

With my particular knee pain, I've barely been able to squat or lunge. As someone who's never even been a huge fan of training my squat, it sucks! I honestly never thought I'd miss it, and now I crave getting under a bar. So while that's a bummer, I'm lucky to have a loooong list of exercises that I CAN do, like deadlifts, overhead presses, chest presses, rows, chinups, pullups and all the accessory exercises that go along with them. I know this isn't the case for every injury, but if you happen to find yourself in a situation where you're dealing with pain, it can really help to try to look past all the can'ts and look for all the cans instead.

So with whatever you're able to do on your rehab journey, be sure to make time for rest, patience, creativity and probably a good amount of frustration, and let’s see if we can keep that fitness journey going!

If you’re not quite sure what your post-rehab or pain management journey looks like, reach out and I’ll be happy to have a chat about what we can do from here!

Coach Dee

@deefitdot

coachdeefitdot@gmail.com

coachdeefit.com

*This site is a fitness and personal training blog for information purposes only and shouldn’t be seen as health, nutritional, or medical advice. This site is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical or health advice, diagnosis or treatment. Any information you use from this site is at your own risk. Never disregard professional advice or delay seeking it because of something you read on this site.