There are about a million reasons – I’ll give you just a chosen few.
Think back to a time in your life when your car got a scratch on it, so you decided to stop driving it, keep it parked in the garage, and never drive it again, preferring instead to let it rust out and fall apart.
Or perhaps to a time when your favorite pants got a rip in them, so you decided to stop wearing your entire wardrobe, choosing instead to just wear the clothes you still had on until they went ratty and turned into rags.
What’s that? You’ve never completely given up on a slightly dinged-up car or a wardrobe with a torn-up item or two?
Of course you haven’t.
So why are so many of us so quick to hang up our gym shoes, throw our workout clothes in the back of the closet, and simply stop moving entirely when we get a tweak, a strain, a cut, or even a full-blown injury?
Here’s the deal: You are made to move – and in more ways than you can imagine (the sheer magnitude of sports, physical activities, athletic events, and other things out there should be proof enough of that). So what do you do if your car gets a scratch in it? You drive it anyway! What do you do if an item of clothing gets a tear in it? You wear other things!
The same goes with movement. Foot bothering you when you run? Take up rolling, rocking, and crawling on the ground until it’s no longer an issue (I’m serious). Shoulder bothering you when you press? Find a variation that doesn’t bother it while you work on getting the issue fixed. Is literally *anything* bothering you to the point of being worrisome? THEN WORK AROUND IT! But keep moving!
I’ve worked with a very wide array of people over the past few years, and I can tell you categorically that those who have kept moving no matter what – despite injuries, despite not being as good as they once were, and despite any other host of issues – are always – without exception – better able to bounce back and often become better than ever when they get some top-notch coaching. Those who have spent the better part of a few decades almost completely sedentary have a much, much harder time making major progress, and if it’s not their bodies rebelling against their new-found goals, it’s their habits, which are now about as easy to change as the oil on that now-antique car you left in your garage for 30 years.
Training smart will limit your risk of injury, but sh*t happens. Not moving at all, however, is an absolute guarantee not merely of a dearth of fitness, but of a slow and steady decay that at some point becomes seemingly irreversible unless you throw yourself into it almost full time.
If you’re dealing with a tweak, sprain, injury, or otherwise “bump in the road” in your training, train around it, put your goals on pause if necessary, but for God’s sake KEEP MOVING!
You’ll have enough time to be sedentary when you’re dead, and it’s much harder for Death to hit a moving target. Keep yourself out of his crosshairs and move boldly forward, even when you reach a bump in the road.