Injuries are rarely a good thing. Minor, major or in between, injuries can drastically interrupt, stifle or undo our best laid plans for adventure, living, remaining healthy and aging well.

But injuries are inevitable, it seems. They are part of life, difficult to avoid, especially for those of us who enjoy adventuring and testing our limits. Even when we’re careful or stick close to home, our bodies are still vulnerable to an array of mishaps. For that reason – because we humans tend to have so many injuries – it’s necessary and wise, for the sake of healthy longevity, to expect their occurrence and know how to prudently manage recovery from them.

The difference between a smart, managed recovery from injury and an impatient, short-sighted, overzealous return to strenuous activity can be life-altering. A badly managed recovery can be disastrous and may lead to further – and more severe and long-term – injury down the road. Thankfully, our bodies have built-in monitors that tell us when something we are doing is not healthily sustainable. Pain sensors often (but not always) let us know when we are straining, stressing, bending or exerting beyond a healthy level.

“In general, people need to listen to what their body is telling them, and follow that,” says Bob Kuzmeski, a certified athletic trainer of more than 35 years, who frequently works with aging athletes and people recovering from joint replacements. “What’s feeling good? What’s not?”

Kuzmeski, who works out of Hadley, takes a holistic approach to his training practice, working in partnership with physical therapists and doctors to coordinate a comprehensive approach to rebuilding strength and endurance fitness. He also monitors his clients closely to determine their goals, history, progress and pain levels.

Of course, pain is a subjective response that registers on different scales for every one of us. For some, a blister on the heel might be reason enough to curtail hiking until it heals. Others might continue hiking with a sprained or even a broken toe (not advisable), ignoring and pushing past the pain.

But pain, while not comfortable, is actually our friend. It lets us know when something is being pulled, stretched, twisted or pushed beyond its capacity. In general, that’s an indicator to pull back or stop what you’re doing.

“Causing permanent damage comes from ignoring pain for a long period of time,” advises Kuzmeski.

Patient recovery

Recovering from injury can be a difficult and dangerous journey. Depending on the type and severity of the injury, recovery can be fraught with mental frustration, confusing fluctuations in progress, risk of compensating and causing other injury, and temptation to ignore warning signs and go too fast.

“Recovering can be super frustrating for an athlete who tears an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), for example, and comes in for a six-month plan,” says physical therapist Lisa Sanderson, owner and director of Aegis Chiropractic and Physical Therapy in Hadley. “Or someone who can’t put any weight on their foot for 12 weeks after being very active.”

Sanderson’s last point hit me where it hurts. I experienced the entire spectrum of injury frustrations when I recently sustained a stress fracture on the third toe of my right foot that interrupted my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. After nearly 1,500 miles of hiking from Maine to southern Virginia, withstanding a variety of daily discomforts, my millimeter-sized fracture caused enough pain with every step to tell me something was not right. I tried to ignore the pain and push on for a few days, but it was clear this one wasn’t going away. I reluctantly returned home to western Mass. for an official diagnosis and two-month recovery plan.

If all goes as planned, I will return to the AT in mid-March to complete the final 750 or so miles. (I will resume my monthly dispatches from the trail in this space.)

Step forward, step back

The art of injury recovery is a delicate balance of push and pull back, testing and monitoring, trying something and seeing how it works. And waiting for your body to heal. Progress can be slow and should be careful.

It’s the waiting – the mental part of recovery – that becomes the true test. For people who are used to being active, curtailing activity is a sort of torture of its own.

Aware of that reality, and the importance of staying in shape, Kuzmeski coaches his clients to remain active by pursuing a menu of pastimes. “Most people I work with do other things when they’re recovering from injury,” he said. “Hiking Mount Tom, on their treadmill at home, using a Peleton, walking their dogs.”

Kuzmeski put his wisdom to work recently for his own knee injury rehabilitation. “What really helped me was finding other activities that were beneficial,” he said. “Sitting on a bike was really important. When weight bearing is a problem, doing soft tissue work to regain joint flexibility, strengthening soft tissue, reducing inflammation. I often work with clients on their balance, work on their flexibility.”

Your injury or joint replacement might preclude putting any weight on your foot, but maybe you can still ride a bike, or swim. Maybe you tweaked your back while skiing but can still walk or do yoga to maintain a level of physical condition.

“We try to give them whatever we can to keep them moving,” says Sanderson about Aegis clients, “keeping their mental energy up, exercising other body parts.”

Eventually, ideally, an injury heals with some knowledgeable guidance from professionals like Kuzmeski and Sanderson, and a return to activity is green-lighted. Still, even then, patience is required to regain your former level of fitness. Generally, the more severe the injury and the longer recovery takes, the longer it will take to get back to where you were.

“It takes time to get back the edge,” says Kuzmeski, “when your mind is willing but your body is not able.”

Return to adventure

In some ways, our human bodies can be impressively resilient, flexible and resourceful. We have adapted to life in every climate on earth, we shape and condition our bodies for spectacular feats of endurance, we are discovering ways to overcome disease and live, increasingly, beyond 100 years.

In other ways, our bodies can be frail and vulnerable to a potpourri of maladies, as demonstrated too clearly in recent years. Viruses, diseases, bacterial infections, bumps, bruises, cuts and scrapes of all variation.

Fortunately for us, most injuries are minor and do not do us in. The cup-half-full interpretation could see our bodies’ abilities to sustain injury and recover as testimony of its pliancy and endurance.

Still, our human bodies have at least 206 bones – 26 in the foot alone – all of which can potentially crack and break; not to mention the thousands of tendons and hundreds of ligaments and muscles and dozens of organs that work in concert to facilitate our daily activities and pursuits. Given all that could go wrong, it’s impressive that we have adapted our bodies to do all that they do.

But assaults to these bones, muscles and organs are going to happen. When they do, our bodies are equally impressive for their ability to assist in their own healing. Most the time, all they need is the right therapies, exercises and stretches.

And time. And patience.

That’s the part I’m working on. Being patient and smart, and looking forward to the time I can return to the mountain paths of the Appalachian Trail. Injury-free.

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