Should you continue lifting when you're injured? . What's up heroes? This is one of the most frequently asked questions that we get at my clinic due to our focus on treating recreational athletes and fitness enthusiasts alike. The worst part of being injured is not being able to engage in the activities that you love to do. Whether it be the social component of your sport, the competitiveness, or the pure joy of pushing the body to its limits, an injury can seemingly take all of that away from you. So what should you do? . When it comes to weight lifting & injuries, PURE REST IS NOT THE ANSWER. The reason being is that although rest can make things less sensitive and decrease the amount of pain that you're experiencing, it doesn't solve the issue at hand. Often, you may end up hitting the gym as soon as things start feeling good again only to find that the pain gets triggered as soon as your start working out. This may happen as pure rest causes de-conditioning of the body, so as you start to load yourself once again you'll find that your injury still can't handle the stress. In this case, one of the better options is to modify your workout by regressing the exercise or modifying it into a pain free range of motion. This will allow your tissues to recover while maintaining your fitness levels . In the case of shoulder pain relating to bench pressing, focusing on dumbbell based exercises may be the better options. Better yet, playing with the angle of your bench may also help to offload your injury. Here we have some alternatives to the Barbell Bench Press: ▪️ Dumbbell Chest Fly ▪️ Dumbbell Chest Press ▪️ Incline Chest Press ▪️ Decline Chest Press . 🇨🇦 Now accepting new patients in Toronto/ Markham. Check in with us by using the link in bio! . 👉Follow @rehabhero 🙌Tag a friend that NEEDS this! #rehabhero #benchpress #shoulderpress #shoulderpain #sbd #powerlifting #chestday #chestworkout #torontofitness #torontochiro #torontophysio #torontomassage