Ready to Get Moving Again After an Injury?

carmenmakepeace
Jun 2
5 min read

Updated: Jun 9

Here is How to Do It Safely and Fully Heal

The first few days are behind you.

You have protected the injury, rested and maybe iced it a little. You have resisted the urge to do too much, too soon. Now comes the part that can feel even harder to judge.

"When can I start moving again?"

"How much is too much?

"What if I make it worse?"

These common questions are completely understandable. After an injury, the line between helpful movement and overdoing it is not always obvious. When pain is involved, it is easy to swing between doing everything and doing nothing.

This blog is here to help you understand how to gently reintroduce movement, when to start rebuilding strength, and how to stay on track — without pushing your body before it’s ready.

The Stages of Healing (Recap)

Healing doesn’t happen in a straight line.

It does however, follow a general sequence:

Bleeding Phase: Happens immediately and can last hours.
Inflammation Phase: From Day 1 to around Day 5 through 7.
Proliferation Phase: Up to 3 to 4 weeks, as new tissue is being formed.
Remodelling Phase: Can take several months, as tissues are strengthened and reorganised.

Each phase has it's own role. Jumping ahead to strength training before the tissue is ready, can delay or disrupt your recovery.

So if you are in week two or three of your healing process and are feeling frustrated that things are not back to normal yet — you are probably right on track. Trust your body and the process.

Start With Movement, Not Exercise

Once swelling has settled and pain has eased slightly, your body will usually start to crave gentle movement. Not exercise. Not rehab circuits. Not jumping back into your regular exercise routine. Just simple, pain-free mobility.

You are not trying to prove anything here. You are reintroducing range of motion and helping lymph and blood flow. This will keep nearby areas from stiffening up.

Movement helps healing — but only the kind your body actually tolerates.

Think slow ankle circles, shoulder rolls and gentle walking. Stay within a pain-free range. You should not be limping or gritting your teeth.

Pain that fades afterwards is generally okay. Pain that builds or lingers, means you need to dial things down. This is often a sign you have done too much. You have pushed a little and that is okay. We all sometimes have to find the line, before we can work in that sweet spot -just underneath it.

When to Start Strengthening

Strength training does not mean lifting weights at the gym. It means gradually loading the tissue in a way that helps it grow stronger and more resilient. That might be bodyweight exercises. It might be resistance bands. It might be standing on one leg while brushing your teeth.

You can usually start this kind of work in the proliferation phase, around weeks two to three. The golden rule is this:

If it causes pain during or after — stop.

You are aiming for 'challenging but comfortable'. If you can not feel it working at all, it is probably too easy. If you are sore the next day, you have done too much.

Common Mistakes That Can Delay Healing

One of the biggest mistakes people make is pushing through pain, because they are impatient or they have taken enough painkillers not to feel it.

Just because you can not feel it, does not mean that it is healed.

Painkillers mask symptoms. They do not mean the tissue is ready. The opposite is true too. Doing nothing for weeks on end can lead to stiffness, weakness and fear of movement. All of which can increase the risk of long-term problems.

The sweet spot is somewhere in between. Think of a calm, confident and progressive movement with plenty of rest and listening in between.

Forget the Timeline — Focus on the Direction

We are often given healing timelines. Such as:

“Six weeks for a sprain”

“12 weeks for a fracture”

These timelines are averages. They are based on large groups of people, not you.

If you are comparing your progress to what you read online or what someone else told you, and feeling like you are 'behind', please stop.

Your healing timeline will depend on all sorts of things:

your overall health
your stress levels
your sleep
the support around you

Even the weather can have an affect on the timeline of your healing.

So rather than obsessing over the calendar, check in with your direction.

Are you making some progress each week, even if it is small?

Are you feeling more confident in your movement?

Are you having fewer bad days, or shorter flare-ups?

These are the signs that healing is happening.

You are not broken. You are rebuilding

Getting injured can feel like a setback. However, it is also a chance to rebuild and strengthen. An opportunity to reconnect with your body in a way that is mindful and kind.

You are not behind.

You are not fragile.

You are not doing it wrong.

You are in the middle of something your body has done before. Your body knows how to do again. Just give it the right environment. Focus on the keys of your healing: movement, rest, patience and a lot of compassion. These can go a long way to optimising your healing, body and mind.

A lot of people view an injury as a massive inconvenience at best or at worst a catastrophe.

I have learned some important lessons from healing a life-changing injury myself. Despite how painful it is to say in the moment, and no one wants to hear it then - myself included, learning to heal was the biggest gift in the end.

It taught me a new way of being. In the beginning I was so ready and eager to get back to my 'old life' and the 'old me'.

This process taught me eventually that the 'old me' was not approaching the way she does things very kindly. Her approach, dare I say it, had a lot of flaws. She was just blindingly pushing through. Why? She thought she had to and that is the way everyone had told her how to be. Mind over matter at the loss of herself, her feelings and her needs.

Healing from an injury can be really simple, it can be life changing if all the things needed from you for you are the exact opposite of your standard approach.

In Summary

Here is a cheat sheet summary for you in phase two of healing an injury:

Gentle movement comes before strength work.
Strengthening starts with light, pain-free resistance.
Avoid both extremes, either doing nothing or doing too much.
Progress, not speed, is what matters.
Your body knows what it is doing. Your job is to support it.

Want to go even deeper into this?

The next blog in this series will explore why timelines can be helpful or harmful, as well as how to trust your body’s unique pace when recovering from pain or injury.