Recently, someone asked me how to deal with an injury. Not the physical side, which she was seeing a physio for, but the emotional turmoil of having to rest. My answer rolled off my tongue without a second thought. “Just let yourself wallow,” I shrugged. “It’s annoying that you have to take a break from something you love, so mourn the workouts you’re missing.”

On reflection, I’m surprised by that answer. Thinking back to January 2020, when I was injured myself, my attitude was different. Wallow? Me? Nope, I was in the gym despite my crutches. Then, I believed that stopping was a sign of weakness. That if I allowed myself to take time off, I was succumbing to whatever forces conspired to injure me in the first place (the irony being that my injury was tendonitis caused by overuse. I was the reason for my own injury). 

I hobbled about the gym, bashing out a gazillion upper body workouts and even went through a rotation of lying hamstring curls and kneeling squats that allowed me to work my legs without pressing through my painful foot. It was all out of stubbornness and ignorance, because I couldn’t imagine ever changing my routine.

Almost as if by magic, on the day I came to write about my fitness lessons from the past year, I’ve got another foot injury. It’s my left foot this time, and it’s a sprain rather than tendonitis. But the main difference is that, rather than making my way to my kitchen for a weirdly contorted version of the boxing workout I had planned, I took a longer shower than usual, spent some time putting on make-up on and sat down on my laptop a little early. I chose to rest rather than push through pain – and I did so without a second thought. 

What’s changed in those 13 months to make me realise I could just… give in? A worldwide pandemic, to state the obvious, during which I’m lucky enough to have remained healthy and well. Even those I know who have had the virus have served their two weeks’ bed rest and been totally fine, so this revelation hasn’t come from a health scare or new-found appreciation for a functioning body. It’s because, when lockdown hit, I was forced to re-write my workout routine. 

Now I was starting from scratch, without any of the expectations I previously had on my training, I realised that I didn’t have to force myself to hit a certain number of workouts a week, or train with a certain upper/lower split. Pre-lockdown, I had been going to the gym on an auto-pilot that was so ingrained that not even a hospital-mandated rest could stop me. Lockdown meant I was forced to think about why I was actually training, in the same way we were all forced to think about what we wanted from our jobs and our relationships. 

It was never that I couldn’t rest – I’d happily take days off if, for example, I’d been out the night before and was a little hungover. It was that, for the most part, the gym was just something I did, rather than something I actually put thought and care into. 

It was part of my day like going to work, brushing my teeth or eating lunch; throwing my workouts together with as much love as my limp kale salads. I told anyone who’d listen about how empowering it is to workout, yet, like so many of us, I was trapped by my routine. Yes, I was getting the benefits of moving my body, but by simply going through the motions, I wasn’t progressing or feeling proud of myself by hitting PBS. That’s unsurprising, given that the body can only progress if it’s well challenged, well rested and well slept, of which I was none. 

Funnily enough, the biggest lesson I’ve learned during the year in which we’ve had to adapt more than ever before, is that I need to stop being such a contortionist. I need to make my workouts work for me, rather than forcing myself into a routine that doesn’t make me feel excited and strong. I’ve realised that change, rest and accepting what my body is feeling isn’t a sign of failure – in fact, learning how to exercise in a way that makes me feel good again has made me feel stronger and fitter than ever. Now I just need to take that lesson back to the gym with me on 12 April. 

Read more from Fighting Fit: Lockdown Lessons While WOFH (working out from home)

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