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?
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.
Like others have said. If you have injuries or body irregularities go to a medical professional. Do not trust some yahoo on the internet.
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
This is when you bite the bullet and talk to a trained professional.
Currently waiting on the appointment. Just impatient.
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.
Do yourself a favor and wait.
There’s a good chance you could make your condition worse.
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
I do think you should consult with a physical therapist. That said, I think machines are going to help you a lot.
With inured wrists you could do a lot with a cable machine and a wrist attachment. You could use a pec dec machine and your forearms to work your chest.
For legs you could try leg curls and leg extensions if you can lift far enough away from your ankle.
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
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.
I would indeed be interested. I have a few from my orthopedic doctor but they’re a bit limited.
Are you able to swim? Braces necessary?
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
Swimming? You don’t have to swim fast to have good energy expenditure
I like doing chair yoga when I’m having severe flare ups! There’s some good youtube videos on it, and it’s safe for ankles and wrists!
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?
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.
