As a fitness instructor, it’s inevitable that you will come across a client with an injury or ongoing injuries. It’s important that you are proactive in understanding the correct approaches in helping a client with injuries so that they benefit from your expertise.
Injuries are challenging for clients, so depending on the condition, it’s important to try and help the client maintain their training frequency and consistency if possible. You can support your client in doing this by adjusting, substituting and skipping particular exercises that are not suitable for their injury. You can also help support clients with injuries through focusing on other areas of the body.
Another vital element of helping injured clients is coordinating with doctors and other health professionals. In order to create a helpful fitness plan for your client, it’s vital you have received an accurate diagnosis and understand the injury holistically. It’s also important to be a team player by understanding your role: working in conjunction with physical therapists and other necessary providers ensure that recovery is a team effort.
It’s important to remember that client injuries are not a barrier to achieving health and fitness goals: persisting with training can help heal injuries in ways that staying sedentary can’t. Movement in any part of the body increases endorphin release which is vital to tissue growth and pain management. Movement also improves the nervous system which aids healing overall. Although every situation and injury is different, avoiding pain and submitting to the injury can halt the foundations of our recovery, so it’s vital that fitness instructors are comfortable when it comes to working with injured clients.