Upper Body Conditioning
Upper Body Conditioning
Getting bogged down by a lower body injury can be a pain in the ass. Especially if it is something you can work around but is going to take time to heal. Especially for an athlete coming back from a lower body injury. Neglecting conditioning work when you have a lower body injury is only going to make your return to play that much harder due to the fact that not only have you been out of your sport in some capacity for a while, you're lacking the strength and speed, and then you lack the conditioning too? This is an uphill battle that can truly set you up for more injuries down the line. You need to maintain a base level of conditioning during your rehab phase, the tools mentioned above can ensure that you are able to do so. It can be easy to see an injury as a time to relax or rest, but truthfully this is a time to improve weak points, and at the bare minimum, maintain a baseline level of conditioning. There's plenty of work still to do even when you are coming back from injury, taking time off or slacking is only going to hinder your return in the long run. Here may be some tools you can utilize to still get quality work in, even if biking, running, etc is out of the picture for the time being.
Sledgehammer swings/rotations
Whether you swing it over your shoulder and hit a tire or do the rotations around your upper body, you can easily push the volume on these fairly high. The swings are great for developing some rotational strength and power, and the rotations are great for shoulder health and challenging core stability.
Battle Ropes
There are a handful of variations that you can perform with battle ropes to keep it interesting, but I think these speak for themselves. These are great for your entire upper body: shoulders, trunk, back, arms, grip. It hits it all and is a tremendous conditioning tool for anybody, but especially those that may be limited from a lower body injury.
Farmer Carries
If you are struggling with a lower body injury I would not recommend going heavy by any means, but light farmers for distance are great for building muscular endurance in basically our entire upper body. We can also incorporate different variations like front loaded carries with sandbags, medballs or rocks. We can also do overhead walks, waiter walks to challenge our shoulder stability. Since the legs are involved the weight needs to be scaled to something that isn't going to cause a flare up or worsen your injury.
Medicine Balls
While medicine ball slams are explosive in nature, we can scale these back or perform different variations that don't require much if any output from the lower body. Medicine balls are one of my favorite movements for all populations because of the demand that they require if you want to get the most out of them. Developing explosiveness for the upper body specifically with medicine balls is a great idea, but especially beneficial while you are rehabbing the lower.
Sled Variations
Again with the legs being involved technically, we need to be mindful of how much weight we are using and focus more on how long we do this. There are a multitude of upper sled variations like Y raises, face pulls, single and double arm rows, tricep extensions, bicep curls, chest flys that we can utilize to keep an aerobic style conditioning component since cardio machines or running may not be in your cards at the moment.
Other Modalities
Some modalities that can be used if the equipment available allows for it, but using just the arms on an assault bike is a great way to light up your entire upper body and have your lungs screaming. A skierg is another option, but most gyms and definitely most schools aren't going to have one of these. They are options and they both work really well, so if they are available I would encourage the implementation of each. High rep band and dumbbell work is also another way that in a sense can condition the upper body. This is going to provide more muscular endurance and build dexterity in the tendons and ligaments, but it is a way that you can tack on muscle, keep your joints healthy, and build a tremendous amount of muscular endurance in your upper body to ensure your overall preparedness level remains steady through this setback.
I have struggled with a multitude of lower body injuries over the years and it has always been important for me to get creative and still do my conditioning work, even though I know it would have to look somewhat different. You can get creative with everything here on the list and more, I simply wanted to share what I always fall back on and what has worked for me. Conditioning is important for everyone, not just athletes. Having a lower body injury does not mean that you should neglect it.