Don’t try this at home without the permission of your doctor! Over 5 weeks ago, my doctor put a cast on my left foot. The MRI told it all – a soft tissue tear that was extremely painful and causing movement to the bone to which the soft tissue attached. The accessory navicular bone to be precise. The tendon was extremely inflamed as well. I was doing a lot of advanced trail running and unfortuntely, tore a soft connective tissue in my foot and then did trail running again on the damaged foot. Dumb, I know!
I had completed P90X at the end of March, took 2 weeks off and then started my round 2 of P90X. When I got the cast on my foot I talked to my doctor about what type of activities I can do. He said upper body is perfectly fine and riding my stationary bike is OK too as long as I do not put pressure on my foot. He insisted I use 2 crutches to keep my foot immobilized as much as possible.
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I have a removable AirCast but that does not matter. I promised my doctor I would not take it off except to shower and change clothes. Besides, it hurt so much that I needed 2 crutches most of the time and keeping it in the cast helped.
With all this, my biggest problem amongst others was how to continue exercising with damaged foot without harming it further. I had made such great progress with P90X during the 90 days and didn’t want to lose all that hard work.
I went through the various P90X exercise DVDs to determine which ones would be safe for me to do. I then modified the way I performed the exercises. Here are some examples of my routines:
Ab Ripper X: I was able to do all the ab exercises so this one was not an issue (except for the actual doing of the difficult exercises!)
All upper body exercises: During the warm ups, where Tony gets everyone going with running in place and doing jumping jacks, I just hopped on my stationary bike. For the standing up stretching, I did it on my knees or sitting down. For all standing up exercise, I did it on my knees or sitting down. For exercises like Lawnmower, I just modified by placing the cast foot leg bent on a chair so I could get into the required position as much as possible.
One day I got very creative and decided to do Kenpo X. Crazy, right? I did not do any lower body movements like kicking! I sat down and did the punching arm movements. When Tony did the kicks and such, I just hopped on my stationary bike.
I also did the X Stretch, modifying as necessary and skipping the stretches where it was not possible to get in position.
I am happy to report that my upper body and abs are looking great! I have not lost anything I gained during my initial P90X run. My lower body will need to get back in the game once my foot is healed and I can get back to my regular exercises. The stationary bike helps a lot.
So, the moral is that there are no excuses NOT to exercise, only solutions. If I can do it, you can too, especially if you are injury free. There is always a way to find the time or the energy to get your exercise done! Your body will thank you.
- Buy P90X and transform your body and life! – lowest shipping cost! PLUS – 2 FREE P90X One on One DVD workouts when you purchase via my link!
