Running with injuries can be difficult, but it is not necessarily impossible, you must simple adopt a different technique. In fact, running with different injuries can actually help the injuries heal faster through stimulation of the damaged area.
Of course, you must make sure not to overwork the area in which you are injured, as you run the risk of worsening your injury, which is something that you most certainly do not want to do if you are trying to improve your health and get back to running at 100%.
Introduction
There are many ways to treat athletic injuries, known as athlete rehabilitation, from ice baths, to muscle creams to various other forms of physical therapy. In fact, there are some forms of physical therapy you can practice without leaving your house, provided you have a yoga mat, a treadmill or some other form of home exercise equipment.
After all, just because you are injured does not mean that you have to give up on maintaining your physical health for the entire period of your injury. Of course, right after you are initially injured, you should not be exercising, as that is the point where your risk or re-injury is greatest and the pain may be too much to facilitate exercising in the first place.
There are also many cases where exercising with an injury would be very ill advised and you should certainly consult your doctor before doing any form of exercise with your injury and you should also ask a physiotherapist if you have one available, as they will give you the best form of advice for how to best get back into your exercise routine after having suffered said injury.
Knee Injuries
For example, you would not want to exercise with a torn major ligament in your knee as this would run a very real risk of increasing the severity of the tear and perhaps even tearing through the ligament completely, which will hamper your ability to run and walk for the rest of your life. This why running with a knee injury can be dangerous and you must always be careful with this particular form of injury.
Running After Ankle Injury
Running on a sprained ankle on the other hand, may be painful, but the pain can be minimized using an effective running technique. You must simply make sure that you do absolutely nothing to worsen the sprain as that will greatly increase your recovery time and make your life somewhat more difficult throughout the injury recover process.
Running after a broken ankle, on the other hand, can be very difficult and great care must be taken not to further exacerbate the damage to your ankle.
You must take great care while running and most of the time you must wait until later on in the recovery process to even consider running after you have broken your ankle, which is really quite a shame, but it is certainly a better alternative to further fracturing or breaking your ankle.
Choosing The Right Recovery
Taking care of your body through an injury is no joke and it is certainly not meant to be taken lightly, so before doing anything on this list, if you think your injury is somewhat more severe than average, we would highly recommend you consult a healthcare professional on what the right decision to undertake would be in your particular situation.
Perhaps you can switch to a lighter exercise regimen, or one that works on a non-injured part of you body, if your injury is more severe than usual. In the end, your return to running after injury is a decision which you must not take lightly, and must decide upon with care.
Running After Plantar Fasciitis
Plantar fasciitis is a condition which affects the band of ligament connecting your heel to your toes, so it can cause you a great deal of heel pain when causing inflammation to this ligament. This is one of the more manageable injuries to run with as you must simply alter your style of running so you do not overly strain your heel and reduce the pressure on it.
What Is An Anti-Gravity Treadmill?
An anti-gravity treadmill is a treadmill on which you may reduce the force of gravity exerted on you, therefore reducing your body weight for the duration of your workout. This is ideal for patients undergoing physical therapy as the force upon your joints and other areas in your legs is diminished and you can much more easily exercise without having to worry about worsening your injury.
While the term anti-gravity treadmill may evoke images of science-fiction machinery and advanced technology, the alter-g anti-gravity treadmill actually functions rather intuitively, though the alter-g is still a technological marvel.
The manner in which the treadmill allows you to select your body weight and the effect of gravity for your current workout may seem futuristic and unheard of, but in reality, all that the machine does to reduce the effect of gravity on you is inflating a plastic bag around the lower half of your body and appropriately adjusting the air pressure in this bag to increase or lessen the effect of gravity on you.
Anti-Gravity Treadmill Prices
Anti-gravity treadmills are not exactly home gym accessories as they can range in price from 35 000 dollars to 75 000 dollars, so they are more often than not found in physical rehab centres, clinics and universities.
Of course, there is nothing stopping the average consumer for buying one if they are of the belief that this would be beneficial to their health and their home, but for most consumers, these treadmills are prohibitively expensive.
Conclusion
To conclude, anti-gravity treadmills are an excellent way to improve the process of injury recovery and rehabilitation, the only issue is their cost, so you will more often than not see them in institutions and rehab centers and very rarely in the possession of individuals who do not have an excess of disposable income and a severe problem with recurring injuries.
Even then, the maintenance for these machines is very complex and requires a dedicated crew.