You can and should still exercise while injured

I have an issue right now: I went too hard at the gym yesterday and now I have a shoulder injury. I don't know what kind or what you would even call it but it isn't extreme enough for me to seek medical attention, I just "tweaked" it a bit and will need to avoid using that shoulder during most things and especially any sort of weight training.

Some people use a minor injury like this as some sort of reason to avoid all physical activity as if they were in a full-body cast or something. This is just laziness trying to creep its way back into your life and you need to be careful to do all that you can to avoid that.

It was this sort of excuse that lead to me getting fat after being very fit most of my life. One day becomes two, two becomes four, and next thing you know you are back where you began and this is exactly what you need to avoid.

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Just like the rest of your body that move, which is most of it, the shoulder is a lot more complicated than you might think and how I did it to myself yesterday could come from a lot of different things. I was doing arms and chest and wasn't even doing any shoulder specific exercises. I have mentioned many times before that shoulders get used whether you want them to or not in almost any upper body exercise so it could have been anything.

The fact of the matter is that my right shoulder hurts today, but i am still going to work out.

You know the old saying of "don't skip leg day" and the photos of the guys who are super buff but have chicken legs?

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_{I don't know if these are photoshops or not, but they are funny and therefore work for me}

So my gym session will be very short, and I suppose that is about as lazy as I am prepared to be. There are plenty of squats, leg lifts, and the dreaded quadricep extension machine that even after years of using it I absolutely suck at. Seriously? Why am i terrible at this one thing no matter how much I try to improve? I'll have to look that up myself.

Years ago when I broke my ankle, I took some time totally off, but after a few weeks I was back in the gym, walking on my cast and you'd be surprised how much people will help you and let you have just about any piece of equipment if you have a cast on. I was thinking of getting one that I do not need that is removable just so I get this sort of VIP treatment at the gym all the time. It would probably work at amusement park lines as well. hmmmmm...

I'm rambling again

The point is, don't let a minor tweak in your body get you reset back into lazy mode. I'm not a doctor but there is always another part of your body you can work out other than the affected area. I think the only exception to this should be spinal or lower back pain and honestly, if you are getting that then you really should be going to see a doctor. The "i'm mildly hurt so I'm gonna take a few days off" is precisely that line of thinking that probably resulted in you getting fat in the first place and small setbacks like a sore shoulder shouldn't be a reason to completely skip all exercise. I won't let it be for me.

_{From young athlete in my 20's to fat-ass in my 30's to the strongest I have ever been in my 40's. I lost 50 lbs by making small manageable changes to my life and I believe other people can do the same}