INJURED? THE UNSPOKEN BENEFITS OF STRENGTH TRAINING
You’ve likely heard by now, through numerous magazine articles or from health professionals, how strength training can improve your performance and help prevent injury. But many don’t know about the other benefits it can bring; at least, until they experience it for themselves.
At SFE we often refer to using strength training as a vehicle; a way of leveraging an individual and making sure that they are not only working on their weaknesses, but also working on making sure they're considering all the other variables that come alongside a great strength and conditioning program: mindset, nutrition, recovery, lifestyle balance etc.
There are challenging times that many of us will face, not just because we are athletes, but simply because we are human beings. Times where we have been given a diagnosis, we’ve found ourselves with less than optimal health or an injury that doesn’t allow us to do the sport we love, all of which can be moments of despair - “What am I going to do now that I can’t do anything?”
It’s likely that at times like this it’s going to have a huge impact on your mental health. Your level of activity, the sport that you play, the thing that you love to do, the people you train with - if you suddenly can't do this, of course it's going to have a profound impact on your life.
Now from experience (both personally and working with clients), it’s clear that strength training can provide an incredibly powerful vehicle for not only coping with these setbacks, but helping to overcome them. Strength training can help you to come out the on other side of injury as not only a stronger athlete, but also a more knowledgeable one that you were before.
We’re going to discuss four benefits that strength training could bring you the next time you find yourself laid off with injury, or simply just needing a shake-up when things have gone stale.
Benefit #1: Structure
Having a strength program to work from essentially acts as a roadmap. It gives you the opportunity to strip things back, work on the things that you can do and not focus on things you can't do.
Of course there will be exercises that you won’t be able to do - this is always going to be the case with certain injuries or certain conditions - but it doesn’t have to mean that you stop doing everything. There's always going be a number of exercises that you can do, which is going to keep you in a healthier routine from day to day.
Whether you are struggling to move past a plateau in your performance, get over an injury or restore bodyweight and blood markers for optimal health, we need some form of structure to follow. Essentially, we need to re-organise ourselves and look at a new way of approaching things. When your normal training sessions are no longer on your timetable, having the structure of a strength and conditioning session to realign your day is hugely beneficial.
Benefit #2: Motivation
If you are living with ongoing injuries or poor health, you're never ever going to achieve optimal performance - so when it’s factors that you can control (with a little effort and time) this should be motivation enough if you want to truly get the most from your body and your sport.
Challenging times of setbacks and injury can leave you feeling incredibly disempowered. However, you have the power to flip this on its head and take control of the situation. Using your strength training, you can be proactive and start making positive changes to your lifestyle and behaviours. What could you be doing physically to maintain strength? How could you be looking to improve the quality of your bones, conditioning of your tendons, ligaments, and muscles? The answer… strength training.
Benefit #3: Purpose
Working on your weaknesses, being consistent with your rehab exercises or addressing your nutrition is going to give you the purpose. Yes, your upcoming goal might not be that race you had planned, but building in landmarks and goals within your strength program is going to give you the essential purpose that we all need to stay positive.
Even if you're in a position where you can't or aren’t allowed to do a great deal, there are so many other areas within your strength training you can be focusing on.
This will put you in a much better position down the line - so that when you're given the green light to go ahead, you're good to go and you’ve put the background work in already.
Benefit #4: Habit Stacking
The power of purpose is significant, as it can be built upon… one good habit, can quickly become two or three, until you find that your week is full up with proactive and effective tasks that will eventually get you back to your best.
Once you start to see the benefits of a regular strength and conditioning program, we can start to add in discussions around improving your current recovery protocols, your nutritional intake, how you periodise your training and what other areas could we be working on in this ‘down time’, so that when you come back you’re stronger, fitter and healthier than ever before.
Takeaway: Don’t underestimate the importance of staying consistent with your strength training, especially when injured. Aside from the physical benefits, maintaining your sessions will be invaluable for staying positive, keeping busy and reframing your mindset.