My wife Jan and I were recently in a car wreck. An idiot driver (who happened to be a young kid, but age isn’t necessarily a factor where stupidity is concerned) was texting while driving and made a left turn right into us. I was driving Jan’s Nissan Quest van, with her in the driver’s seat, and the other car – a Lexus – slammed into the forward quarter on my side of the van, then hit us again in the rear side panel as he ricocheted off.

Jan walked away without a scratch, and so did the kid (I’m just glad the boys weren’t with us!). I got off really lucky, all things considered, but after crawling out the driver side window (the door was jammed shut and I didn’t feel like picking my way across the passenger side – I thought the van was on fire from the smell of the airbag deployment!), I did have a few dents and dings: bruised ribs on my left side where I slammed against my elbow as I was thrown against the door, plus a sprained right wrist from when the airbag blew. Like a dummy, I was trying to honk at the idiot when it went off. I’m lucky I didn’t get smashed in the face with my own fist!

Aside from the general aggravation and fright of the thing, I had just started my fourth round of Tony Horton’s P90X program. But the accident put a bit of a squeeze on things: I couldn’t do pushups, chinups, or move much weight with my wrist, and anything that required much core support was out because of the bruised ribs (note: if you’ve never had ‘em, and I hope you never do, bruised, cracked, or broken ribs are a total pain in the patootie!). On top of that, I think I have shinsplints in my right leg, which may have been made worse by the accident, and that’s temporarily put a stop to any running, cardio, or plyometric workouts!

So, the question has become, what the heck can I do to at least keep my edge a little bit and not turn into a blubbering blob of protoplasm?

The first thing was nutrition: I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do a ton of calorie-burning, so in order to not turn into a fatty cheeseburger I’ve trimmed down my intake a bit and have made sure to have a Shakeology ever day. That’s helped to give me the energy I need, and also gives me a lot of nutrients that’ll help my body repair itself. Plus it tastes really good!

Next is what to do for exercise. After looking through our pile of Beachbody workout programs, I finally decided to concentrate on two P90X workouts: Yoga X and X Stretch. With Yoga X, I’m going to skip over the vinyasas and other bits that put stress on the wrist and focus on the lower body and balance moves that don’t bring on too much discomfort. The same goes for X Stretch: there’ll be some moves, like the forearm stretch, that’ll be pretty hard or too painful to do, but I’ll push it until something hurts and then go around. Once we get back home (we’re out in Luray, VA right now in our RV), I’m going to start biking a bit to get in some cardio. We’ll see if my leg complains too loudly.

The most important thing, however, is to just do something! If you’re injured, be smart about it and don’t do anything that’s going to make your injury worse, but don’t feel that you’re helpless and can’t do anything at all. Aside from basic things like walking, swimming, or biking, there’s likely something in one or more of the Beachbody programs (like P90X, ChaLEAN Extreme, etc.) that can help you get back to where you want to be.

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