Fit Tips 101: If you’re injured, please...stay home. Here's why.

Don’t make the same mistakes I did. As a young lifter, I HATED the gym. It was such a struggle, to come in and out of the gym everyday barely able to lift my arms to get out of bed the next day. The discomfort, the pain, the physical effort was draining, it took every ounce of my energy.

It wasn’t until I started seeing the results of all of my hard-earned gains that I really started to appreciate and fall in love with the gym. There’s something incredibly motivating about seeing your progress day in and day out of the gym...and it gets to the point where you don’t even need motivation to work out because over time it becomes a passion. Well, that was the case for me anyway. By the time I had my first major injury in the gym (I believe I had a partially-torn rotator cuff...but was never properly diagnosed), I realized how hard it is to stay away from the iron. It took more mental willpower for me to NOT go to the gym, then to have put myself through an excruciating workout. See, the real battle here you’ll be facing if you’re injured is a mental one.

There’s nothing more defeating than being mentally ready for the challenge, but your body won’t cooperate. This goes for all athletes and any form of exercise. What could have saved me a lot of time and anguish is if I stayed home and allowed my injuries to heal properly..

Instead, with a stubborn mind and broken body, I went back to the gym too soon and ended up re-injuring myself just one week after I thought everything was okay. My advice to you is to take your doctor’s advice, even if it seems like they’re exaggerating about how long you should stay out.

Take it from me, someone who has been there and made that mistake. I know it’s hard but you’ll be back, just give it some time and patience. Going to the gym and making progress is our number one goal, but when we’re injured, our number one goal should be to focus on making a full recovery.