The High-Achiever’s Dilemma: Rethinking Training After Injury

It’s one thing if you’re a pro athlete with a performance contract and a deadline. Your job depends on hitting markers fast. But for the rest of us? We’re just trying to get back to normal — walk without pain, train without setbacks, play the sport we enjoy.

And here’s the reality most high-achievers struggle to accept: you can’t fast-track recovery just because you want to. Even if you’re motivated. Even if you’re consistent. Even if you’re doing “all the right things.”

I worked with a post-op client recently — early recovery from a hip replacement. He walked in looking great: confident gait, minimal limp, clearly doing the work. He’d been consistent with his exercises: squats, good mornings, marching drills — all technically sound.

He showed me the routine he’d been doing on his own — just 5 to 10 minutes of movements he’d been assigned elsewhere. But as we talked, I learned that he’d already increased the reps across the board. What had started as a modest set of recovery exercises had turned into a much higher-volume session, done daily.

After walking through the routine, he stood up to walk — and something had shifted. His gait tightened. His hip wasn’t extending well. His posture was different. He mentioned a little discomfort, and the way he moved had clearly changed.

That was the red flag. He walked in looking better than he walked out — and that told me the current approach was asking more than his body was ready to give.

The exercises themselves weren’t necessarily the problem — but the combination of volume, frequency, and where he was in the healing process likely was. Whatever the reason, the message from his body was clear: this was too much.

After my own meniscus repair, I followed the plan. I was consistent. I did the work. But there were still days when my knee didn’t feel right afterward — tighter, more irritable, more guarded. And I couldn’t always trace it to a single moment. But looking back, the cause was usually one of two things: too much intensity — the forces were just too high for where I was, or too much volume without enough recovery time between sessions.

Both looked like good work on the surface. But my body wasn’t ready for it underneath.

And that’s the hard part: the movement can look clean, the session can feel productive — but not all the feedback shows up right away. Sometimes it’s during the session. Sometimes it’s after you cool down. Sometimes it’s not until the next day.

You have to pay attention to all of it — because if you’re not looking, you’ll miss the early signs that it’s time to adjust.

When you’re healing, the real question isn’t, “Is this a good exercise?” or “How much should I do?” It’s: is this the right combination of movement, volume, and intensity for where I am today? And am I changing too many things at once to even know what’s helping — or what’s not?

If you tweak the exercise and increase the weight and add more reps — how do you know what caused the setback?

That’s why the smarter move is to err on the side of caution. Adjust one variable at a time. Let your body prove it can handle the current workload — and only then bump the volume, raise the intensity, or introduce something new.

Recovery isn’t about doing everything. It’s about doing the right things, in the right amount, at the right time — and listening closely to how your body responds.

For driven people, this is the hardest part: patience. Trusting that just because you’re capable of doing more doesn’t mean you should.

If something feels off the day after a session, don’t just shrug and power through the next one. Step back. Reassess. Adjust. That’s not weakness — it’s strategy. Progress is made in small, steady exposures — not big leaps made out of frustration or impatience.

Even if you’re not a pro athlete, your goals still matter. And treating recovery with respect — not urgency — is what gets you there faster in the long run.