Listen up! Injuries happen, injuries suck. That’s all for today. Clearly, I’m joking, but it’s true isn’t it?

Firstly, should you get injured during any time on your wellness journey, be smart about it and seek professional help before continuing with exercise.

Fast forward — you’ve gotten the OK from your GP or PT to train having injured yourself recently? Good. Let’s do it. Ideally, most of us have a well-educated fitness professional in our lives, or leading our training sessions.

That being said, I can rightfully assume that they know how to modify workouts to best suit your abilities, whether injured or not. Moving on …

Injuries suck, I know. During my life as a track athlete — both in university and home in Bermuda — I’ve experienced numerous injuries. It was quite heartbreaking knowing that I couldn’t train or perform at 100 per cent. That period of “down time” taught me one thing though: that injuries suck.

For real, they do. However, during these periods I was able to come out stronger mentally, understanding that they do occur and that there are always ways to “find my fit” working around the injuries.

Basically, when you injure yourself — whether you roll your ankle doing hill sprints, hit your shin while doing box jumps, get sore wrists from push-ups, or even fracture a leg — there are ALWAYS ways to remain fit, provided the doctor has signed off on exercise.

Assess your injury, make notes of what you are physically able to complete.

Sore ankle or leg and need a week or two of rest? Perform more upper body exercises and low-impact leg exercises. Broken arm or sprained wrist? Perform lower body exercises.

Provided you can still support an Olympic bar on your back, squats are always an option, right? If not, perform body weight exercises for the lower body.

Core exercises are pretty much always there for completion; a broken leg or arm does not prevent you from doing leg raises, Russian twists or any other core exercise (except planking on a broken arm).

At the end of the day, injuries suck. I keep repeating that because it’s true BUT remaining fit comes down to your creativity and commitment.

It may not be exactly what you want to do, but it’s what your body can do for the time being. Do not be discouraged if hill sprints aren’t in your future this week, nor push-ups nor anything else your body can’t handle right now.

Trust that you will heal and will be able to complete most, if not all, of what you were able to do before injury. Trust that your body is an excellent healer, with rest and recovery. Trust that if you DON’T rest the injured part, you will delay your recovery. Yes, injuries suck. What sucks more is pushing through the injury, delaying recovery or worsening the injury — putting you back even further.

Be honest with how your body feels and perform only what you are capable of doing. Doing this even while 100 per cent will prevent injury as well. That, along with performing exercises under proper supervision or simply having the body awareness to know if you are doing something incorrectly, will help prevent injury. Did I mention warming up, stretching, cooling down?

Yeah, a very important part of your journey. Do NOT neglect them. Injuries happen even if you are doing everything right which, again, sucks. Let’s look to stay injury free by doing everything right and, should an injury happen, be honest and kind to your body until you fully heal.

It may suck, but with creativity and commitment you can surely come out of that phase still fit or fitter in certain aspects. Be strong, stay encouraged and continue to enjoy the journey.

• Dre is a retired track and field athlete who is now a personal trainer, aerobic and yoga instructor and fitness “addict” with more than 20 years’ experience. She specialises in nutrition, weight and sprint training, operating out of HindsSight Fitness and Wellness at the Berkeley Cultural Centre. Contact her on: absbydre@gmail.com or 599-0412. Find her on both Facebook and Instagram under @Absbydre.