On Episode 185 of the Doc and Jock Podcast Coach Joe tackles a great question from listener Mitch Alexander about getting back into lifting after an injury.

Via email, Mitch asks, I'm in the middle of a self imposed few weeks off of heavy lifting. Switched up for some HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) to give the body a chance to recover. Any suggestions on how to ease back into lifting?

This is a great topic and a common one! In fact Coach Joe is managing his own case of self imposed time off and just now beginning to ramp up barbell work.

There are 3 keys to managing injury in Coach Joe’s mind.

1st Be proactive. Injuries generally happen because there is an imbalance in training. Be sure to sneak in opportunities to provide contrast to training sets and reps during your prep and auxiliary work to avoid injury.

2nd Assess Your Training Habits. Regarding the Sport Weighting it is easy to fall into chronic behaviors that can promote overuse injuries. Post injury one the first things you must do is look back through your training log and figuring out what you were doing to much of and limit that behavior. The worst thing we can do post injury is not train. The best thing we can do is adjust training. As Coach Joe relays his own experience with this he discusses how he limited his barbell work but added a lot more asymmetrical loading, rotational style exercise, and worked to establishing long time under tension. All of which contrast the behaviors that led to his most recent tweak.

3rd Integrate the Barbell back into your training program with movements that promote skill and positions, not load and intensity. As Coach Joe has worked for a few weeks with the movements described above and started to gain that old feeling he is also conscious of the fact that he is slightly de-conditioned, especially as it relates to the barbell. With that in mind, instead of working at percentages he is opting at working with a linear progression and going off of feel. He is also choosing partial variations that limit load like the drop snatch.

Anyone coming off of an injury in any sport can pull a takeaway or two from this conversation.