8 Fitness Tips to Recover from a Car Accident Effectively

Individuals who are involved in car accidents suffer a wide range of injuries that make it difficult to quickly recover from a car accident. These include muscle strains, sprains, joint injuries, broken bones, spinal injuries, or head injuries. If you’re suffering from these car accident injuries, it can have adverse effects on your functionality and day-to-day life.  It’s important to focus on how you can quickly recover from a car accident and engage in specific activities that will enable you to do so. This will ensure that you can get back to living a healthy life where you consistently feel good.

Get immediate treatment for your automobile accident-caused injuries because it is critical to a quick recovery. When doctors assess you and establish the nature of your physical injuries, they will likely recommend rehabilitation exercises to restore your health. Exercising consistently could increase the speed at which you can regain strength, heal your injury, and reduce pain. Below are some helpful exercise tips to help you recover after a car accident.

1. Get A Personal Trainer

After a car accident, many people are quick to seek the help of a personal injury attorney to recover damages. However, just as important could be finding a physical therapist or personal trainer to help with the recovery process.

If your doctor advises you to start exercising, the best way to remain focused and consistent is to work with a personal trainer to help you achieve your recovery goals. Working with a trainer enables you to engage in the correct exercises for the injuries you are facing. These exercises can help you regain the physical movement and flexibility you might have lost following a car accident. 

2. Prepare Mentally

People respond differently to treatment, depending on age, underlying medical conditions, and severity of injuries. Once your doctor allows you to exercise, take time to prepare yourself mentally. Focus on maintaining a positive outlook throughout the recovery process.  

As you begin the recovery process, have realistic expectations. Talk to your personal trainer and find out what to expect during exercise sessions. Stick to your treatment plan and check your assessment results for issues whenever you go for follow-up appointments. If the doctor doesn’t find any problems, be content and optimistic about your progress.

3. Follow Your Doctor’s Advice

While exercise is critical to your physical injury recovery, you need to engage in it within the parameters your doctor or physical therapist has set for you. Engaging in intensive exercises after a car accident can do you more harm than good. Often, therapists will tell you when you are ready to begin exercising and show you the specific moves you need for stretching or strengthening the injured area.  

However, this doesn’t mean you can go full blast on those exercises. Start by taking baby steps, then engage in more intense activities as your body adjusts. If your injuries allow, start doing yoga. This could help tone your body and prepare you for strenuous activities. Either way, follow your doctor’s advice and reach out to them if you experience difficulties. 

4. Be Willing To Start Small

After experiencing a car accident injury, your desire to resume your routine and activities can be overwhelming. However, the recovery process is slow and therefore requires patience. As such, be willing to start your exercises slowly and increase them gradually. If you’re in pain or experience swelling or stiffness in the injured area, wait until the situation improves before you start exercising.  

Pay attention to your injuries throughout the process so you can detect any flare-ups. Just because you used to exercise at a certain intensity before your injury, this doesn’t mean you should try to push yourself to the same intensity right away after the injury. Instead, start with a comfortable, easy exercise and add a little intensity every week as you progress. 

5. Don’t Over-exercise

While you’re likely to experience some discomfort during exercise, the pain shouldn’t be intense to cause you agony. Know the difference between “the burn” and pain. If you have any questions, about the difference between the two, talk you your personal trainer. Feeling a slight burn during the workout would help you make progress in your recovery journey but exercising through pain can impede that journey.

The “burn” should disappear as soon as the movement stops. If you experience intense pain or the discomfort fails to disappear within an hour, it could be a sign you’ve stretched yourself too much. In such a case, take a few days off. When you resume exercise, start with less intense activities and progress gradually.

6. Take Time To Stretch

Before you start any physical activity, start by stretching your body. This warms your body up and causes your blood to start flowing. Stretching is essential because it could prevent any further injuries to your body. It also plays a vital role in helping your body regain its normal range of motion. 

However, even with these benefits, it’s best not to stretch your body within three days of being involved in a car accident. During this time, your body should rest. Stretching it could stress the injured area unnecessarily. 

7. Utilize Massage Sessions

It’s challenging to engage in exercise when the injury you’ve sustained from a car accident is painful. The pain could be caused by muscle tissue stiffness, swelling, or spasms. The easiest way to relieve this pain to a point where you can engage in low-intense exercises and fast-track your recovery is by massage sessions.  

Besides relieving pain, massage therapy could reduce tissue scarring and stimulate healing by enhancing the circulation of nutrients and oxygen in the injured area. Massage also improves joint flexibility because the skeletal muscles and tissues around the joints are stretched manually.

8. Work on Strengthening Exercises

Although resting appears like the best thing to do to heal after an injury, moving the body and exercising it may be the most effective way to expedite recovery. People who are injured from a car accident need to find ways to reduce pain while regaining their flexibility and strength. The best way to realize this is to engage in strengthening exercises.  

These kinds of exercises are good at pumping blood to different parts of the body. This ensures that more nutrients and oxygen are delivered to the injured areas, causing them to recover faster. The exercises also strengthen the body muscles, tendons, and ligaments, which protect other structures in the body. 

Final Thoughts

Injuries sustained in car accidents could have a significant impact on your physical health. Doctors may ask you to engage in physical exercises to reduce pain, regain flexibility, and quicken recovery. While exercising offers numerous benefits to the body, it could aggravate injuries if they’re not done correctly. This could add time to how quickly you can recover from a car accident. If you’re injured in a vehicle accident and need to start exercising, apply the eight tips above to ensure your injuries are not aggravated in the process.