So, you know that cardiovascular training improves cardiovascular health, obviously!
But do you know why cardiovascular training is so important when you’re injured?
Well, there are lots of reasons.
Improved Tissue Healing
When you do cardiovascular training, you’re circulating oxygen and nutrient-rich blood around the body and towards injured tissues. This has been shown to improve tissue healing times and reduce recovery time. Essentially, cardiovascular training improves tissue quality, which is vital.
Improve Your Ability to Tolerate High Loads
The fitter you are, the more overall workload you can tolerate. What is load? This article will be able to answer that for you.
So why is that important? Well, if I want to rehabilitate an injured limb effectively, I need to do sessions that will put adequate stress on those tissues so they adapt, become stronger, and in turn more robust. With good cardiovascular fitness, I am going to be able to complete longer or more sessions, which is going to stimulate improved tissue capacity, strength, and movement control. All of these will in turn get you back to sport with less chance of re-injury.
Improved Pain
There is good evidence that cardiovascular training improves pain levels. Ongoing pain can be a massive stumbling block, holding someone back when rehabilitating or returning to sport. If you’re suffering from pain, it’s going to limit strength, muscle function, and impact confidence. So using cardiovascular training to lower pain levels can be essential.
You’ll Be Fitter When You Return to Sport
What’s a huge risk factor for injuries? Doing too much too soon and not being fit enough for that level of load. Time and time again, I see people who have gone through a good rehabilitation process from a strength point of view but haven’t reached suitable aerobic fitness levels. This means that when they return to sport, they get overloaded and break down. Maintaining cardiovascular fitness while you’re injured can help bridge that gap when you’re returning to sport.
Tune in next week for some ideas on how to program your cardiovascular training when you’re injured.
If you want to help with anything injury related then feel free to Book In and we can get you on the journey to becoming pain free again.
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