How to Maintain Fitness While Recovering From an Injury

If you have a sports injury, you will likely need to take time off to rest, recover, and regroup. There are ways to maintain your fitness and endurance levels while you’re sidelined from intense exercise.

Read on for a lower-body workout while working through shoulder injuries and upper-body training plans for ankle, knee, and leg injuries.

Injured athletes often worry about their fitness levels waning during recovery time. Detraining or deconditioning is a fact of life when you stop exercising, but if you want to maintain your fitness base, there are ways to stay active.

You can maintain your fitness level even if you need to modify or scale back your exercise for several months. You’ll need to exercise at about 70% of your VO2 max at least once per week.

Before you exercise after injury, get your doctor’s approval. Follow their recommendations about when you can resume exercise, how much, and which exercise is best.1

Even if one body part or joint is immobilized, you can find new ways to stay fit while rehabilitating by using the principles of cross-training. It may take creativity and the flexibility to try new things, but most athletes find training through injury is possible and not difficult.

The key is to have the right attitude and remain active within your tolerance until your injury is healed. Here are ways to continue working out while recovering from four common injuries.