When Injury Interrupts the Journey: A practical guide to movement, nutrition, recovery, and protecting your progress while you heal.

You don't have to be a professional athlete to know how frustrating an injury can be.

One moment you're building momentum, hitting workouts, seeing progress, and feeling strong. The next, you're wondering if weeks or months of hard work are about to disappear.

After injuring my back this past weekend, I found myself reflecting on a lesson that every fitness journey eventually teaches us: setbacks are part of the process.

In this episode, I share the recovery framework I'm using right now, including how to approach movement, walking, strength training, nutrition, sleep, and mindset while your body heals.

We'll discuss why complete rest isn't always the answer, how to maintain progress even when you can't train normally, and why the habits you've built throughout your health journey may be helping you recover more than you realize.

If you're navigating an injury—or simply want a game plan for when life inevitably throws you off course—this episode is for you.

Because injury may interrupt the journey, but it doesn't have to end it.

I'd love and appreciate a 5 star review, and sharing my content with a friend who might love to listen!

Find me on Instagram for daily life, tips and fun content: @wellness.with.virginia

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome back. I took a bit of a break at the beginning of May, and it honestly was longer than anticipated, but I had some work travel and then my kids were finishing up school. And honestly, I just felt like I needed some space between sort of last season and this season. I don't really have a definition of what seasons look like in my podcast, but this feels like a good time to restart. It's the beginning of summer. So for me, my schedule doesn't change that much. Like from a work perspective, I still work a hybrid remote work environment. I'm still doing my faster rate of fat loss coaching with clients. I've been really trying to tweak with some projects that I'm working on. I'm looking actually into going into like the UGC space because honestly, I just feel like my Instagram account and my journey as a health and wellness coach is just ready for some changes. And so I'm excited to do that. But today I wanted to talk about something that happened to me literally just last weekend. I had just finished a live leg day with my client Debbie. It was amazing. We had the best time. Honestly, I was doing nothing. I literally took a step and immediately felt this like takes your breath away pain in my lower left back, like almost near um like the top of my glute. And it first was like one of those, I call it like a warning zing where your body's like, hey, I'm gonna mess you up, and then boom, this excruciating pain. Um, and I honestly have not done this since, and I remember because I had started a new job since 2019. And I think it's important to talk about and share with everyone because number one, I've had clients recently and throughout the years um need like a recovery plan from an injury, from a procedure. Um, and we talk about taking like a deload week, but I really wanted to share this with you in real time, in the moment, to talk to you about something that I think everyone who pursues a fitness, strength, weight loss, or athletic performance will eventually face, and that's an injury. Maybe it's a tweaked back, a strained shoulder, a sore knee. Something happens and suddenly the pain you've, you know, the plan, the pain takes away the plan, I guess is what I'm trying to say. In my case, as I mentioned this weekend, I injured my back. So the good news, because I have to find the good news right now, is that it was significantly better than when I have done this in the past. Recovery was faster, the pain wasn't as severe, and I actually think that's part of the lesson for me. I was telling my daughter this morning, you know, I had excruciating pain for the majority of the day on Saturday, and I used like a pain cream and like one of those like microwaveable rice packs, and honestly, I just rested it. And by Sunday, it wasn't that excruciating pain anymore, but it was very stiff and super tender. But I do think when you're stronger, you're leaner, you're more mobile, and you're generally healthier, injuries can often become setbacks instead of catastrophes. So when I did this in 2019, honestly, I was probably 45 pounds heavier. I was doing everything I could and it just wasn't really moving the needle on the weight. I actually think it was that excess weight that really led to my back muscles becoming more weak. And even though I know that intellectually today I am stronger than I was then, my injury was honestly leading me to panic. And I was literally wondering, am I going to lose all my progress? Should I stop moving completely? Do I need to cut calories more since I'm not training? How long can I lift again? What if the becomes this becomes a chronic issue? So today I want to talk through a very practical framework for handling injuries or like a recovery from a procedure while staying on track with your long-term goals. I'm going to cover mindset, movement, nutrition, recovery, and how to return to training intelligently. Because the goal for me isn't just healing the injury, the goal is healing while preserving as much progress as possible. So let's talk about the first mistake most people make. The biggest mistake, and honestly, my immediate knee-jerk reaction on Saturday after getting injured is treating a temporary problem like a permanent one. The moment it starts hurting, you soon probably jump to one of two extremes. The first extreme is panic. You assume all your progress is gone. You stop caring about nutrition, you stop walking, you stop sleeping well, and you hit the pause button on every healthy habit you've worked to build. The second extreme, I think, is denial. You pretend nothing happened and you keep pushing through that pain. This was not an injury where I could do that. But you, when you do that, you are loading injured tissues and you're turning like a two-week problem into a six-month problem. I'm here to tell you neither of these approaches work. The better approach is understanding that training is not the goal. Health, rest, adaptation are the goal. Training is the tool, and when one of those tools becomes temporarily unavailable, you can use different tools. And your mission should shift from how do I keep training exactly as I planned to how do I continue improving while respecting the injury that my body has right now? And that's a totally different mindset. So let's talk about why being fit helps recovery. And I'm using fit in like its most generalized term. The one thing I noticed immediately with this recent back injury was that my recovery, in other words, that excruciating pain, seemed to heal faster. And that wasn't an accident. Being stronger and in better health and in better shape created resilience in my body. So I want you to think about two different people. Person A is sedentary, poor sleep, poor nutrition, low muscle mass, limited mobility. Person B, and by the way, I was person A, you know, in some respects in 2019. Person B lifts regularly, walks daily, has decent cardiovascular fitness, eats enough protein, maintains a healthy body composition. If both of these people tweak their back, who do you think recovers better? Honestly, it's person B. Not because they're invincible, but because they're bringing more resources to the recovery process. Recovery is a biological process. Your body needs energy that comes from protein and carbohydrates. It needs blood flow, sleep, movement, capacity, tissue quality. The healthier the system, the better the repair. And this is one of those hidden benefits of fitness. It's not always about aesthetics or performance. Fitness is like insurance. It doesn't always prevent the injury, but it often reduces the severity. Whenever I'm dealing with an injury with myself or a client, I think about a hierarchy. Your first priority, number one, reduce the aggravation. So on Saturday, to reduce that aggravation, I immediately put that pain cream on it. I used that rice pack. And I moved as much as I could without like continuing to aggravate it because for this low back issue, it's when it stiffens up that it actually hurts the most. So I moved, but I also rested, like I literally just laid on the couch. And that kind of leads me into your second priority of maintaining movement. So I reduced the aggravation, but I kept moving. The third is to preserve your fitness. And the fourth is to rebuild your strength. And you'll notice that getting back to normal workouts immediately isn't on that list, but I'm telling you right now, it was definitely on my mind. So let's go deeper into reducing aggravation. I know this sounds obvious, but I think a lot of people misunderstand it. It doesn't mean move, you know, avoiding all movement. It means avoiding movement that clearly worsen your symptoms. And there's a major difference. If bending forward caused me sharp pain, maybe I just don't bend forward, right? I have someone pick something up for me. If a heavy squat irritates your back, temporarily remove them. But that doesn't mean lying on the couch all day, although that is what was best for me Saturday. Recovery isn't an activity, it's a strategic activity. But in those first few hours, honestly, I could feel my blood pressure like in my throat. I was in so much pain. So for me, in that moment, I had to strategically think of what is best right now to stop this. Um, step two, once you've kind of reduced that aggravation, maintain the movement. And I think this is where a lot of modern injury approaches differ from older recommendations. Years ago, injuries were treated with like bed rest. And today we know appropriately dosed movement is often very beneficial. Movement helps your circulation, your joint lubrication, your muscle activation, healing your tissues, and really sort of working out that pain. But the key phrase there is appropriately dosed. So for this back injury, for me, it means walks, some mobility movement when I can tolerate it, controlled body movements. I hope I can do those by the end of this week, and light sort of postural changes throughout the day. Not pain-free perfection, just movement that your body will tolerate. So the questions I asked myself is what can I do instead of hyperfixating on what I can't do. And I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying I succeeded, and I'm still in some pain, right? But that mental shift opens a lot of possibilities. So for me, there's one recovery tool that I think is often overlooked, and that's walking. Walking outside. Like yesterday when I was at work, sitting in my desk chair for hours, like I normally do, really aggravated that pain. And so I knew I had to get out for some like small walks around my office. When I walk, it you know, increases my blood flow. It gives me some gentle spine, gentle spinal motion, it reduces my stress, and it's a really minimal recovery. Like it's a really minimal demand on my body for recovery. For a lot of injuries, walking is the foundation. It doesn't have to be long walks. Sometimes, like I did yesterday, those shorter walks throughout the day are better. Um, but sitting for long periods of time just really makes things worse. Like when I woke up this morning after sleeping all night, I was very stiff and I actually had some pain. But movement this morning kept my tissues from getting stiff and guarded. And I really want to tell you like every injury is different. But generally speaking, most of us can do some walking unless you have like an ankle injury or an Achilles injury. It's really simple, it's very accessible, and it helps me continue that habit of movement. I got up this morning and instead of doing our workout, I walked. And keeping up with those habits also kind of keeps me out of my head about this injury. Okay, let's talk about nutrition. This is where I feel like people just totally get themselves into trouble. In your mind, you're burning fewer calories and you're super frustrated, and so you immediately think I should eat a ton less. Honestly, that's the wrong move. Recovery is where your body is repairing tissue and managing inflammation and rebuilding the damaged parts. That requires resources. So I wouldn't overeat, right? You're not training for a marathon, but it does mean your injury recovery is not the time for a diet, you know, crash diet. I want you to focus on nutritional quality. Now, I will say if you have like a restriction where you can't literally do anything weight-bearing on an ankle for six to eight weeks, we are going to adjust your macros, right? But for this week that I'm, you know, kind of pacing myself out through this injury, I'm not adjusting my nutrition at all. Protein, however, is so important now because your muscle preservation and your tissue repair really depend on it. So I always say a target for people is 0.7 to one gram of protein per your total pound for your goal body weight. Not because protein is like this magic wand, but because it supports muscle recovery while helping to preserve your lean mass. When you are really focused on micronutrients, you are giving your body vitamins, minerals, antioxidants. And especially right now, because I'm, you know, kind of frustrated and whatever, I naturally would probably gravitate towards some highly processed chips, right? But it's important for me to remember things like fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and whole foods is how my whole body is going to process those micronutrients and work towards recovery. I also need to remember to be hydrated, right? I'm not moving as much, I'm not sweating as much, but hydration is another key factor in really helping my discs, my joints, those connective tissues function better because my hydration is at an adequate level. So if you are on like a very specific weight loss journey and you are actively trying to lose weight, this injury could create anxiety for you, right? You may not hit the same calorie burn, you may not train as intensely, progress may slow. Honestly, that is okay. Weight loss is not a one-week project, it is like a multi-month lifestyle. If my recovery temporarily slows my fat loss, but helps me avoid a major setback, I have to remind myself that that's the win. If I think about the alternative and I push too hard and I injure myself more, I'm going to miss months of training and actually realistically delay my progress. So sometimes I have to remind myself and my clients the fastest path forward requires temporarily shutting or slowing down. I'm not trying to win this week, I'm trying to win the year. So I really love the principle of train what you can, not what you can't. So if my back is injured, obviously deadlifts are out. But that doesn't mean every workout is canceled. Now, I will say every workout is canceled until probably Saturday or Sunday of this week. And I am telling you, I am having to tell myself that every day, not today, Virginia. But if you are having a longer injury recovery period, could you do an upper body workout? Could you do a seated exercise? Could you do single leg work, band exercises, core stability? It really depends on the injury, but very often there are training options available. And I will say in our Faster Way app, there are foundations workouts, there are mobility, there's yoga, there's bar, there's Pilates, there are workouts with just bands. There are so many options when you go into our workout library that when I'm ready, I know I can ease back in. If you can safely train unaffected areas, you really preserve a really surprising amount of fitness. And there is evidence that maintaining training in healthy limbs can help reduce injury elsewhere through the mechanism of strength training. So, really, the broader point to all of this is injury doesn't always mean doing nothing, it just means doing something different. And pain is information, but not always the severe damage. So for me, pain matters, but pain and damage are not identical. Immediately I thought my back was, you know, demolished forever, right? But sometimes the tissues have healed but remain sensitive. So today my pain level is like a two out of 10. Saturday it was like a 50 out of 10. But it's still sensitive. And that discomfort during recovery is normal, but the pain will tell me if I'm doing too much. And I have to really listen to my body. I have to really think about do my symptoms calm down afterward, or do they stay escalated or get worse? Temporary discomfort that settles down might be acceptable to my recovery. And patience is so important here. And I am the most naturally impatient person I know, but recovery is not linear, right? You have a good day, you have a bad day, you have a good day, you have a great day, you have an unexpected setback, and then improvement again. And that is normal. When I woke up this morning and my back was super stiff, I was panicked because I was like, oh my God, is it hurting again? And I just have to remind myself that that is part of that recovery process. And walking is all I did today. If I had to think about the thing that's most important during injury recovery, honestly, it's getting enough sleep. You need to repair those tissues, you need to regulate your hormones, you need to improve your mood. And injuries can make sleep worse, right? You're not sleeping like Saturday night. I slept horribly. Sunday, I had a lot of stress, I had a lot of frustration, and that just makes recovery harder. So during recovery, sleep isn't just important. It's like your number one priority. You need to treat sleep like you would a training session. Keep your same bedtime, try and keep your same wake up time so you can stay on those habits, right? And then I think the last thing I want to talk about is the mental part, that mental side of the injury. And I've been kind of weaving this in throughout, but injury can threaten your identity. I can't even tell you how being injured really, number one, made me think of like, how am I gonna coach my clients? And then I was like, wait a second, I coach clients through injuries all the time. And it's so important for me to be transparent here and transparent on my Instagram and telling my clients and telling my followers and telling my audience that yes, fitness is a major part of my life, habit is a big part of my life. And when I start feeling disconnected from my routines and my workouts, I feel like I'm falling behind. But just like I would remind my clients, I need to remind myself that progress is measured by consistency across all the months of the year. And the people who succeed long term are not the people who never get injured, they're the people who adapt when injuries happen. Everyone's journey gets interrupted. You get the flu, your kids get sick, you travel for work. The difference is how you respond. Some people quit and others pivot. And I'm just being honest here, the people who pivot keep it moving forward. Maybe not at full speed, but forward. So don't let this injury completely sideline you, but think through about all these topics that I talked about today. What applies to you and what could you move forward? Finally, let's talk about returning to training because I literally can't wait to do that. So when my symptoms improve, I could fall into another trap. I already foresee it. Feeling better and feeling fully recovered are not always the same thing. And that's where a lot of re-injuries occur. I'm gonna wake up and the pain is mostly gone, and I'll think, ah, finally, time to get back to normal. And then I jump immediately into those advanced workouts, and that's a bad idea. I need to rebuild gradually. So I was telling my daughter this morning, and actually I told my husband last night, I it is going to be hard. I need everyone here to tell me to not go into that garage and lift weights. I need to start back slow. And in my mind, I'm gonna give my body a full week and I'm gonna start again on Sunday, and it's gonna be super light because I need to rebuild gradually and let confidence and tolerance grow and make sure that there's a little left in the tank to allow my body to readapt. So I'm gonna start with a few conservative workouts, knowing that that's far better than restarting this injury cycle. If you listen to this while dealing with an injury or file this away if you hurt yourself in the future, an injury is not the end of your progress. It's just a temporary change in your strategy. I'd love for you to focus on moving within your tolerance, walking regularly, eating protein, sleeping well, training what you can, manage your expectations, and finally return gradually. I really want you to remember that your fitness isn't demonstrated by how hard you train when everything is going great. It's demonstrated by how well you adapt when things don't go according to plan. This weekend, hurting myself after not hurting myself in this way for seven years reminded me of something very important. The goal of all of this, my strength training, my walking, my mobility, my nutrition, and my healthy routines wasn't just to get stronger. It was to build a body that's more resilient when life inevitably happens. And that's exactly what recovery is about. Not rushing back, not giving up, just continuing the journey from wherever you are today. I want to thank you so much for listening and for all of your thoughtful and kind, you know, messages that you've been sending me as I've been sharing this throughout this week. Um, if this resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. And if you have a friend that would benefit from hearing this, I'd love it if you'd send it to that friend too. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you next time.