Conditioning While Injured?

[Izzie]

Currently, I have an injury in my right knee and my right wrist, so I won't be able to do much gymnastics for a while. I was to still stay in shape so I'll be able to do great when I return, by my conditioning options seem limited.

So far I've been doing lots of Piked Crunches, V-Ups, and N-Ups. Is there any of conditioning exercises I can do without using my right wrist/knee AT ALL? I'm especially looking for arm and leg muscle conditioning, because the V-Ups should cover stomach muscles mostly.

 

[All Chalked Up]

"Plank" hold. It's basically a front support on your elbows.

 

[coachmolly]

Are you still going into the gym for practices? If you are, I would suggest you ask your coaches. They know the specifics of your injury and what you can/cannot do. They also know you and what specific areas would be good for you to work on while injured.
Without knowledge of your specific limitations, I can really only think of ab exercises and toe raise type activities that would keep pressure off your wrist and leg.

 

[gymnast88]

You can do jumps onto a higher mat with your leg that is not injured. To make that more challenging you could put weights on your ankle and do the same thing.
With your un-injured arm you can use small weights (2-10 pounds) and lift them.
Hope your injures heal up quick!

 

[Deleted member D3987]

talk to your coach!

 

[bpatient]

Train the uninjured limbs

One of the almost magical aspects of conditioning is that strengthening one side of the body also benefits the other side--even if you don't exercise that other side. Thus anything you can do to strengthen your uninjured limbs will also strengthen your injured limbs, although to a lesser extent (about 30% of the benefit). If you want to return to your pre-injury condition as quickly as possible, you should strength train your uninjured arm and leg with the help of a qualified instructor.

FWIW, this is due to changes in "neural drive" or "cortical drive." You and your coaches may be interested in some recent articles linked below:

Unilateral strength training increases voluntary a... [Clin Neurophysiol. 2009] - PubMed result

Neural adaptations underlying cross-education afte... [Eur J Appl Physiol. 2009] - PubMed result

Also FWIW, when my daughter suffered injuries that limited her training, she turned to weight training as the most efficient means to return as quickly as possible to her previous condition. Not all gymnastics coaches recommend weight training or incorporate such strength training into their programs, but it's clear that weight training can be beneficial even for young, properly-supervised athletes.

Here's an interesting article on strength training for gymnasts:

Should Female Gymnasts Lift Weights?