Training After Injury: The Road to Rehabilitation—Week 2: The Assessment

Welcome back, friends. You made it to the next instalment of my “Training After Injury: The Road to Rehabilitation” diary. If you’re new here and have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, you can see my first post here. The TL;DR version? I suffered a neck injury back in 2016, have an SI joint that acts up here and there and have been paired with Equinox Yorkville Tier-3+ trainer, Roy Chan, to help me fix any imbalances in my body to avoid more injury and get me stronger and more fit all while keeping my mood in check, because, you know, exercise = endorphins = good mood all around. Whew!

Which brings us to the here and now, my first meeting with Roy. After chatting with him about my story and what my goals were, we got down to business: my assessment. First up? My weight, measurements and body fat percentage. Cripes.

Here’s the thing: I don’t weigh or measure myself. Ever. I don’t own a scale and to be honest, I avoid it like the plague because numbers just scare me and put me in a weird mindset. Instead, I gauge whether or not I’ve gained weight by seeing if my clothes fit, because, you know, I’m a fashion girl at heart.

So when Roy told me to step on the scale, I kind of freaked out internally. Then he proceeded to take my measurements, which, again, made me cringe a little inside, but I dealt with it. However, NOTHING could have prepared me for what was next: quite literally measuring my body fat.

The last time I had a trainer, he used the scale or some special machine to figure out my body fat percentage (honestly, this was back in 2009, so I don’t exactly remember what he did). Roy decided to do it old school: by literally pinching my body fat, clamping it, and measuring it. Not only did he do this for four areas of my body (tricep, abdomen, top of hip joint and thigh), but he also measured each three times. It was painful and awkward AF. I don’t want anyone pinching at my fat, let alone someone I’m meeting for the first time ever.

After that trauma, I did a fitness test—or as Roy tells me it’s called, a “Functional Movement Screen” (FMS)—to assess imbalances and weaknesses in my body. This information would help him assess risk and choose smart exercises to help reach my goals.

The FMS included squats, single leg balance, lunges, core stability and mobility tests on my hips and shoulders. He tested the amount of full chest to ground push-ups I was able to do. I hit 11… 80 per cent of which were in poor form, I’m sure.

In Roy’s findings, my core stability screen was scored low, which, as he explained to me, exposes risk. He noticed that my core didn’t react to keep me balanced during the test, and explained that when my body rotates with speed and force, the lack of stability can cause wear and tear on my muscles and joints. Essentially my core isn’t doing a good job of protecting my hips and lower back during high threshold rotations—a particular issue since I do Muay Thai which involves punches and swing kicks.

From these findings, Roy set out these corrective goals for my training program, in addition to the five push-ups off the ground goal:

• improve rotary stability to 2:2 (train the core to stabilize under rotation and to remain stiff and resilient.)
• no longer feel irritation in my right SI joint
• improve range of motion in neck

Oh, and I’m supposedly going to lose 3mm off skinfolds (or one per cent body fat) from all of this.

I left that session with a bit of a bruised ego (honestly, I thought I was way more balanced than I actually was), but determined to crush the goals Roy had set out for me. Little did I know, there would be some roadblocks along the way…

But you won’t hear about those until the coming weeks (sorry guys, can’t spill it all at once!)

On the agenda next week? My first workout which made me so sore the days following, I could barely get dressed or walk down the stairs. Fun times! See you next week!

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