Returning to Weight Training after an Injury: The 8 Important Steps for Success

Ready to get back to weight training but not sure where to start? We’re here to help!

There is a certain amount of uncertainty when it comes to returning to lifting weights after an injury. Understanding what to do can be a grey area for most, and although it’s a good idea to rest an injury initially, there comes a time in your rehab journey when returning to resistance training can benefit your recovery further. Knowing how to do this will be key to success – it will help reduce the risk of re-injury and help you get back doing what you love

Why is resistance training important?

Strengthen weakened tissues post injury:

When injured, our tissues naturally become a little weaker. To build back the tissue’s strength and capacity to load, we need to perform some form of resistance training.

Minimise deconditioning during and post injury:

When we’re injured, we tend to think rest is the best medicine. Depending on the injury, that can be correct. However, for many injuries, if we rest too much or bodies can become deconditioned to the demands of our sport and training.

Performance:

Whether your preferred form of exercise is running, cycling, swimming, gym based, CrossFit, or HYROX for example – resistance training is beneficial for boosting performance for all disciplines.

What Are the Steps to take when returning to weights?

1. Consult a healthcare professional

If you are still experiencing pain or have any doubts around your injury. Having a good knowledge of what your injury is, the healing timeframe and what movements to avoid is important. Your physio can guide you through this.

2. Follow an individualised rehab program

Ensuring you’re working on specific weakness post injury will help reduce the risk of re-injury when returning to the gym. We need to build the capacity of the injured tissues in a controlled and graded manner to ensure they are better able to withstand the demands we put on them going forward. For example – if you are returning to weight training post knee injury, it is important to work on your single leg control, glute strength, quadriceps and hamstring strength. If you have had a tendon injury, its important you have loaded and strengthened that tendon adequately to it is able to withstand the demands it will be put under as you return to training.

3. Warm-up well

Warming up before training will improve your readiness to train, optimise your performance in your session, and reduce the risk of injury. Performing 4-5 minutes of steady state cardio will help increase your body’s core temperature, pump oxygen rich blood to your muscles, and get them primed and ready to perform. Adding in some active stretching drills, and muscle activation work specific to the lifts and movements you will be doing in your session will help to get your body ready.

4. Listen to your body

Pay attention to how your body feels during and after the exercises. If you have any pain (beyond normal discomfort), it’s essential to stop. Over time you will learn what is good pain (muscle fatigue that doesn't cause injury or tissue damage) versus 'bad pain' that is not good to have: the pain that leads to worsening symptoms and preventing improvements in tissue repair and strength.

5. Start Small

If you have taken some time away from the gym – be it due to injury, illness, life demands – don’t jump back into the same training load, intensity and volume after injury. Scale things back. It's much easier to progress and add load than it is to settle things down if we’ve gone overboard.

6. Don’t be afraid to modify movements

Modifying a previously painful movement is important to allow you to reload and strengthen the tissues without spiking or causing more pain. A simple example of this is when performing a squat, we reduce load and work with just our bodyweight. If we can comfortably perform body weight squats for our target number of sets and reps, then we can gradually increase the resistance by adding an external weight. Focus on form rather than weight or volume of the exercise.

7. Cool Down and Mobility Work

When returning to resistance training post injury, we are not just re-loading the injured body part, but the rest of the body too. More than likely, you will experience some associated muscle soreness and stiffness as your body becomes adapted again to these demands. Ensure you fit in some time for mobility work post session to minimise this.

8. Monitor your progress

Keep track of your sessions i.e. the movements, resistance, sets and reps, and monitor how your body feels during and after. Monitoring this will allow you to make gradual and safe progressions in your training session and eliminate the guess work.

Let's re-cap:

Getting back to weight training after an injury is important. But we need to do it gradually. Don’t jump straight back onto the weights and intensities you trained at pre-injury. We must work back to them. Consulting with your Physio to advise you and give you an individualised plan will help eliminate uncertainly and set you up with the best chance of success.

References:

Wang Y, Luo D, Liu J, Song Y, Jiang B, Jiang H. Low skeletal muscle mass index and all-cause mortality risk in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. PLoS One. 2023 Jun 7;18(6):e0286745. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286745. PMID: 37285331; PMCID: PMC10246806.

Bishop D. Performance changes following active warm up and how to structure the warm up. Sports Med 33: 483–498, 2003.

Zeno SA, Purvis D, Crawford C, Lee C, Lisman P, Deuster PA. Warm-ups for military fitness testing: Rapid evidence assessment of the literature. Med Sci Sports Exerc 45: 1369–1376, 2013.