So, as I said, I’m injured. So today, because I’m right in the middle of it, I’ll share the approach I use personally, and at Leftfield, to get back up and running again.
A BIT OF BACKGROUND
I jarred my right leg rolling at jujutsu the Wednesday before Easter. I couldn’t put weight on it and went home to rest. It got better—until it didn’t. By Good Friday night I had pins and needles and was in the ED. X-rays cleared me of fracture or clot; suspected torn meniscus.
"And if it hasn't improved by Tuesday, make an appointment with your GP and get an MRI to confirm."
So, on the understanding I’m not advising any treatment of injury which is beyond my scope of practice, and that I'm further being deliberately light on some details that could only be potentially unhelpful— specific rehab drills, for example— because, even if you had the same injury, the ones I’m doing may not, necessarily, be right for you, this still offers a very useful approach as both guidance to, and guardrail, keeping you on the straight and narrow road to recovery.
Beginning with step:
MOVE
All non-painful movement will help. And minimal (3/10) pain is fine. Just remember: pain meds skew the scale—3/10 on Endone, isn’t really a 3/10, right?
Because my pain only spiked intermittently to, at worst, about a 6/10, but also because I was trying to gauge how serious the injury was, I didn’t take any pain relief.
But I will further underline that had I suspected I was adding unnecessary tension, guarding, or other compensation because of pain, I definitely would have because these can both inhibit the healing process and, over time, cause additional problems.
TRAIN
Saturday was a scheduled training day, so that’s what I did, switching out the only bilateral exercise in that session, Double Kettlebell Front Squats for a unilateral KB Rear Foot Elevated (RFE) Split Squat (on the good leg) and, otherwise, trained as normal.
Again, not to be a hard-arse or martyr, but because, through cross-transfer, training the opposite uninjured limb could only help the healing process.
Besides which, more limbs than not were uninjured, and rare exceptions only prove the rule that you can always train around an injury. As well as continuing to make progress in these areas/exercises I could enjoy all the other benefits you can expect from a training session and, not least in this instance, a much-needed uptick in an otherwise foul mood.
REHAB
I have a couple of 2-10 minute windows in the morning and afternoon before feeding the dog, which I use for drills/skills of the moment. On occasion, I’ll forget, but she never does. They often change, but they’re usually to address a sticking point or niggle, or indeed injury, so I’ve subbed in a couple of meniscus-specific drills and I’m working through the progressions.
Twice a day, every day. Rehab exercises only help when you do them.
So far, all well and good, right?
But what happens when you’re gagging for jujits and hill sprints you want to reintroduce exercises?
Easy.
As already outlined, you introduce any and all new demand—load, distance, reps, whatever— to the same minimal (3/10) pain threshold and with a large margin for error.
That way, your body can tell you if it was a good idea or not. And it will.
Here’s what that looks like in practice.
HALVE DEMAND
Take whatever load, distance, rep number you think you can do— or you think is reasonable— and halve it.
A couple of weeks of rocking (horizontal, unloaded squat) slowly but surely reopened a full range (bum to heels) of movement in the squat pattern, so I then reintroduced bilateral exercise with partial-range, supported, bodyweight squats, meaning I went HALF as far into a squat as I thought I could go and with a doorway to grab (and help me unload the limb) even if I got that wrong.
And I did half as many as I figured might be reasonable.
So 10.
_________
After I'd been walking around the house without pain for a week, and another week increasing the dog walking time/distance incrementally from 5 minutes (the dog was not impressed) to about 15, I tried a couple of skips— no problem. I then reintroduced running by going half as far as I figured might be reasonable.
And ran 20 metres—the length of a cricket pitch.
All while paying close attention and ready to wrap it up after 1m or 9m or whatever, if I got a red light on the dashboard.
But also stopping at 20m (and 10 squats), no matter how good I felt.
And after my 'run' and squats —and every increase in demand thereafter— I waited:
THEN 12+24+48
How does it feel, 12 hours later?
And 24 hours later?
And even if it feels fine, don’t repeat the process for at least 48 hours.
It's super important to note that, again, no matter how good I felt I would never reintroduce more than one exercise on the same day, but not because it would be 'too much' (because I'm already taking care of that by halving stimuli and doubling timeframe) but because I don't want to confuse the issue.
If I am more sore the next day, it doesn't help if I don't know if it was the squats or the running that wasn't a good idea.
Now let's say it wasn't a good idea. A little more atypical pain will suggest it was a bad idea, and you can adjust accordingly. But that’s all it will be— a suggestion. Nothing a day or two of reduced load or rest— again determined by the 3/10 pain— won’t fix.
Is it possible that even given the generous buffer zones we’ve allowed, that even in the absence of a clear indicator (increased soreness) it wasn’t a good idea?
I don’t know. I do know that a below-threshold, ‘undemanding’ movement is just that— movement, so it’s unlikely. The dose is the poison, but if that is the case, the next incremental increase, or the one after that, will reveal it.
The strict observance of these generous buffer zones doesn’t ensure your body will accommodate every progression in a linear fashion. They simply mean that if you do overstep the mark, you can step back again and adjust accordingly without derailing the whole thing.
Again, a little bit of soreness is fine. But if it hurts more than it did in the absence of demand, it wasn’t a good idea. Give it a couple of days and then, assuming no soreness, halve it again—so you’d be running 10m.
Give that 12+24. And so on.
And then one magical day, there will be no pain. Not on waking, or with any sort of regular activity or movement, and not even with any reintroduced but still carefully managed (exactly as above) training activities.
Exactly where I am now.
THE DANGER ZONE
Because this is where it typically all goes sideways. And by typically, I mean 90% of the time.
Firstly, because you’re going to forget about it.
And one day, you’ll be getting out of the car, or otherwise unconsciously going about your day and some twist, or shift, will load that injury in an untested, unanticipated fashion, and you will be back to square one.
So you have to keep it front of mind.
In the same managed manner as above, you want to remove any bracing at the earliest opportunity both so the injury can strengthen and because, like pain meds, it can be confusing the issue, but a (non-supportive) compression bandage or athletic tape is useful because it serves as a reminder: you are not yet 100%. And don't you forget it.
Not even if it doesn't hurt, especially if it doesn’t hurt.
Granted, this might seem confusing given we’ve been using pain as a gauge throughout this process, but your injury is healed only when you have built the same strength and a full (or at least the same as prior to incident) range of motion.
If you stop rehab— if you ever started it— you may well be able to go about your daily life and even the same training, but that injury is a time bomb.
It’s common for people to build some strength back, no problem, but it’s the mobility that is a dead giveaway. In my experience, far more than half the world—myself included— has a stuffed ankle because they sprained it once back in the lost days of yore, did nothing about it, and one day it stopped hurting.
And because it now has all the mobility of a brick, they’ve sprained it annually since. And it causes issues further up the chain in their knees and hips. In the other half of the world, it’s the wrist. Or elbow. I guarantee, you’ve all got something.
So let it be heard: when you get to the point it no longer hurts, you’re closer to the start than the end of this process. Stay the course. Stick with your rehab drills. And with something as rock-solid-reliable as a hungry dog to remind you.
RECAP
I added as much minimal pain movement as possible.
Targeted rehab drills twice a day, every day.
Trained the opposite limb.
Otherwise, trained as normal.
Reintroduced all increased demand following the 1/2 and 12+24+48 protocol.
Keep it front of mind.
Rehab fully.
A process that all Leftfielders are boringly familiar with. But not because they get injured often. In fact, by getting to grips with autoregulation and the corresponding sensitivity to what is going on —by listening to their bodies from their first training session, they are far less predisposed to any training injury.
Further, as otherwise fit and regular trainees, they are correspondingly magnitudes less likely to be injured via any other non-training avenues.The fall prevention, power training and armour-building in Leftfield programming further equip them to recover from, sidestep or even cop other potential injuries on the metaphorical chin.
But even in the absence of those Leftfield specifics, fitness full stop— at any level—is better than the alternative when it comes to resilience.
Not an unnecessarily pedantic or long-winded point, but only to rub out an all-too-common rationalisation of non-exercisers.
Training is not dangerous. Not training is dangerous.
[And if ever there was an oxymoron, it’s the rationalisation of no exercise.]
No, they are familiar with it because they follow it to work back to their previous training capacity/load following a break from or disruption to training for:
Injury
Illness
Travel
Any reason
OBVIOUSLY
Nothing I’ve outlined here supersedes any medical advice. Unfortunately, it’s common for that advice to end at the ED. Or after one trip to the physio or osteo. Or for there to be a long gap between treatment and any follow-up.
In any case, even in the absence of said advice, this approach is intended to aid the healing process largely by saving you from yourself. From ego and impatience.
Even in a worst-case scenario, you could do something basically idiotic, and it still wouldn't be that bad. Does a somersault meet the 3/10 threshold? Okay, go for it.
But it is not a substitute. Should there still be any doubt…
SEEK MEDICAL ADVICE. AND FOLLOW IT.
THE LONG ROAD
Finally, I have a relatively minor injury, in the scheme of things, and I don’t call this a long road to dial up the melodrama or imply a trial of any consequence, but only to reinforce the key feature of this approach.
And especially so when, even in light of the undeniable benefits, many will still view this as hurried, if not reckless, when, at every stage, it is the exact opposite.
It's called the long road because at every step, you err on the side of caution and default to the longer time horizon.
When in doubt, you halve the stimulus (again)
Or you double the time (again)
Or both (again)
Meaning that it’s not only possible but probable you could do it quicker. But the upside never matches the downside.
Could I get back to Jujutsu 1 or 2, or even, by halving the expected downtime, 3 weeks quicker?
Maybe. But every setback in the form of serious aggravation or re-injury doesn't just restart the clock, but often adds to it at the other end.
I'm happy to say I've only learnt this through personal (not professional) experience— impatience and stupidity. Happier still to say this restraint I insist on professionally is now, as described, my personal approach too.
I’m not interested in introducing the possibility of any steps back, so I’m happy to forgo two steps forward in favour of 1/2 a step. Or 1/3 of a step.
As long as I keep moving forward. When nothing is slower than getting it wrong, you don't want to be anywhere close to needing everything to go right.
So take the long road back.
____
Enjoy your weekend.
- OLI