I’ve been asked a few times about this. Not 100% sure why, as the guy who has had two knee ops, countless bruises and some sort of ache/pain on a daily basis…Ah yes I see now!
The simple answer is yes but being smart about your training is essential. These are strategies and suggestions, not instructions. Don’t do it just because it’s listed here. You won’t be able to lift as heavy as you recover, so instead focus on doing high volume, high quality but low intensity work
Upper body injuries are possibly the easiest to train around. So an injury to the shoulder, hand, wrist or elbow you should still be able to train your lower body, core and the other unaffected arm.
Just because one of your arms is injured doesn’t mean the other can’t be trained by utilising uni lateral training. Exercises like single arm Dumbbell Rows, single arm dumbbell bench presses, single arm dumbbell or kettlebell overhead press and single arm pull downs.
Give your spine a break too, taking a bit of time off Squats and deadlifts, as much as it pains me to say this, isn’t necessarily a bad idea. Incorporate rear foot elevated split Squats, lunge variations and hip thrusts as an alternative. Also adding some dynamic work is great way to overload the lower body without having a load on the spine. Great dynamic exercises would be Box Jumps, Hurdles, Depth Jumps, split squat jumps and squat jumps, all can be down with body weight, resistance bands or a weighted vest.
On the other side of the coin is working around lower body injuries, which can be difficult especially with knee, ankle and foot injuries. You can continue to train and retrain most of your strength throughout your recovery period. Train the uninjured leg with some simple movements like single leg squats, single leg hip thrusts and single leg deadlifts.
As obvious as this may seem, train the upper body. Some people seething an injury means no training. You can still train the upper body with very few modifications.
Core training involves the lower extremity and without one leg can be difficult to find core exercises…but of course there are some so, no excuses. Utilising deadbugs, leg lowering exercises and hanging leg raises will still work that core!