Working out While Injured

I broke my toe. I stubbed my toe on my 10-pound weight while going to open up the window so I can get air to finish out my workout hour at home. I didn’t pay attention to where I was walking, and I stubbed my index toe (the toe next to the big toe) on the 10-pound weight. I heard a crack, and I KNEW that was not a good sound to hear.

Now that that is out of the way, I want to let you know that I still worked out right after the stubbing happened – I had a 15 min stretch of workout left.  Yes, I was working out while injured. It hurt, but I figured that the pain could dwindle down by the nights end. Please know that this is not the right thing to do, and I advocate halting all activity if you feel an injury occurred that is outside of your pain threshold. The pain in my toe did not dwindle down by night’s end. I visited urgent care the next morning for an x-ray to confirm what I was dreading – I have a toe fracture.

How do you workout when you have a toe fracture? You workout intentionally and carefully. There are many upper body workouts that can be done: bicep curls, tricep extensions, shoulder press, and variations of the aforementioned. You can even perform pushups (modified by using the wall instead of pushing your body up from the floor). But, what do you do when you want to do lower body workouts? We look for exercises that would not require weight placement on the foot that is injured. One main exercise that I am looking into placing into my rotation – leg lifts. Outer leg lifts, inner leg lifts, diagonal outer leg lifts and diagonal inner leg lifts. All of these lifts I will complete on the floor. In terms of squats, there is an opportunity for me to start doing one legged squats, lifting the leg that is injured in the air, and holding on to a pole or the back of a chair (the same side of the injured foot that is lifted). These are some of the exercises that I am looking to incorporate into my regimen while my toe is mending.

In visiting the foot specialist, it has been determined that the healing of the toe would be approximately 4 to 6 weeks. This can occur given the boot for my foot is worn the majority of the time, I tape up my toe according to how the foot specialist showed me (which was not the way I was advised to tape up the toe from the urgent care doctor), and I minimize the movement of my toe. 

Key takeaways I have learned as a result of my injury –

*Always listen to your gut/inner self

*Listen to the advice of medical professionals

*Work within your means

*Have GRACE with what your body can do

Workouts I can do with a foot injury –

*Leg lifts (outer leg)

*Leg lifts (inner leg)

*Fire hydrants

There are definitely modifications that I can find for additional leg exercises, but I am going to keep it simple for the next week and focus mostly on upper body workouts and core exercises.

The one thing I know for certain that I will do is to keep going. I will find ways to workout my body, which doesn’t add stress to my foot. Although I will miss my go to lower body workouts, I know that I will not have to avoid doing these workouts forever and this is what needs to be done now so I can heal by toe as best as I can.