Turning Setbacks Into Strength: What Injuries Can Teach Us About Our Bodies

We sat down for dinner, and I couldn’t help but brag to my wife, Lia. That’s what life partners are for, right? “I’ve still got it,” I said. “I can still see the angles and make the passes. I can still throw no-look passes on the fast break.” I couldn’t stop talking about how well I performed in my first pick-up game after years of not touching a basketball.

As we finished dinner and Lia patiently listened to my play-by-play, it struck. I got up to clean, but I couldn’t stand properly. A sharp pain shot through my knee, and I couldn’t put any weight on it.

I’d had knee problems growing up—playing basketball, skateboarding, and generally not taking care of them. But nothing I’d done during that pick-up game suggested I’d injured them. It didn’t make sense.

The next day, I went for an MRI scan. The diagnosis? A torn meniscus.

Turning Weakness into Strength

This blog post is for anyone facing an injury or fearing one. I want to share how this setback became the turning point that transformed my lifelong knee issues into making them the strongest they’ve ever been. I hope my mindset and the practical steps I took for recovery inspire you to overcome your challenges and turn weaknesses into strengths.

Understanding Injury

An injury occurs when the load or exertion placed on the body exceeds its capability, leading to breakdown. While injuries can sometimes be accidental—caused by factors outside our control—they often stem from improper progression and overload.

Progressive overload is crucial for growth and adaptation. Our muscles, bones, cardiovascular capacity, and physical skills all require gradual increases in workload to improve. However, striking the right balance can be tricky. Push too hard, and you risk injury. Take it too easy, and progress stalls.

For newcomers to training, it’s especially hard to gauge where that balance lies. So, what’s the solution?

The Power of Curiosity

The answer is simple: find out.

Approach each training session with curiosity. Start conservatively, ensuring you can perform movements with proper form—hitting the correct starting position, ending position, and transitions. Once you’ve mastered the movement pattern consistently, you can gradually add intensity.

Don’t get attached to specific numbers, like lifting a certain weight or finishing a workout in a specific time. As a beginner, your focus should be on developing proficiency in movement patterns and gradually increasing intensity.

This gradual increase, known as progressive overload, is essential for improvement. Without it, your body won’t adapt. But if you overload recklessly, you risk injury, which could derail your entire training journey.

Adopting the Same Mindset for Injury

The mindset of curiosity applies to injuries, too. If you’re injured, it’s an opportunity to discover what your body can still do. Once your doctor or healthcare professional clears you, you can begin exploring ways to strengthen the injured area safely.

Just as you would with healthy body parts, provide your injury with the right stimulus to promote adaptation and healing.

Learning Through Injury

Injuries can be a gateway to understanding your body better. Use the experience to research how the injured area functions, how it was injured, and what steps can improve its recovery.

For example, I learned that blood flow is crucial for healing. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients to injured areas, fueling recovery. This knowledge guided me in selecting exercises that promoted blood flow to my knees.

My Knee Rehabilitation Journey

To rehab my knees and make them stronger than ever, I followed Ben Patrick’s "Knees Over Toes Guy" program. This program not only helped me recover but also gave me the strength and confidence to train without knee sleeves, wall ball hesitations, or constant worry.

Here’s how I approached the process:

1. Initial Focus on Rehab:
   For the first couple of months, my training revolved entirely around my knees. I avoided conventional conditioning and compound lifts that I had been doing as part of my CrossFit training. Instead, I focused on building my knee strength from the ground up.

2. Gradual Progression:
   Once I regained strength and could move pain-free, I slowly introduced load and intensity. I continued following the program whilst adding a  focus on upper-body movements like push-ups and pull-ups, along with hinge-based lower-body movements like deadlifts and kettlebell swings. This wasn’t “varied” programming, but it was the necessary scaling for progress.

3. Strengthening Over Time:
   Over the months, I felt my knees getting stronger. The tendons hardened, the surrounding muscles grew, and my confidence increased with each repetition.

4. Reintroducing Movements:
   Once I could squat below parallel without pain, I reintroduced squats into my strength training. Rehab movements became part of my warm-up, ensuring good blood flow and providing a baseline for how my knees should feel before adding load.

Key Takeaways

1. Rehab as a Gateway to Strength:
   Turn every training session into an opportunity to explore your body’s capabilities and gradually increase them.

2. Consistency is Crucial:
   Rehab and strengthening require consistent effort over time. Repetitions of progressively challenging stimuli build confidence and resilience.

3. Adaptation Through Blood Flow:
   Exercises that promote blood flow to injured areas can significantly aid recovery.

Today, my knees are the strongest they’ve ever been. They’ve gone from being a lifelong weakness to one of my biggest strengths, allowing me to train confidently and pain-free.

If you’re dealing with an injury, remember this: it’s not the end of your journey—it’s an opportunity to rebuild, strengthen, and learn more about the amazing things that your body can do! 

If you have been injured or off training for a long time and looking for a comeback click on the button below to schedule a FREE Discovery Call.