Rest Isn’t Enough: Why Active Recovery After Injury Gets You Back Faster and Stronger
- Dr. Victor Garcia
- Nov 3
- 4 min read
If you’ve ever been told to “just rest” after an injury, you’re not alone. We often hear of this advice being given to high school pitchers with arm pain, active adults who rolled an ankle, or to the parents of a youth athletes who are sitting out of games hoping for a speedy recovery.
But here’s the truth: rest alone isn’t the best way to recover from an injury.
Yes, rest is important early on, but an active and guided rehab plan are what truly help you and your loved ones return to sport safely and decrease the likelihood of re-injury.
Let’s break down why.
Why Rest Alone After an Injury Can Slow Your Recovery
Resting after an injury gives tissues a chance to heal, but too much rest can actually make things worse. Your body, for better or for worse, adapts to the stress we place on it. What you load, strengthens. What you don’t load, weakens.
When athletes return after long periods of inactivity, they’re often less prepared to handle the physical stress of their sport. That’s why so many people re-injure themselves soon after coming back and why most new injuries take place early in the season.
Picture a baseball pitcher who shuts down for six weeks because of elbow pain. He rests until it “feels better,” then goes straight back into full bullpens. Shortly after they feel the same pain, or worse. Why? Because rest has a negative impact on strength and tissue resilience. Shutting down also removes the painful stimulus of throwing so of course it stops hurting. We’ll go over that last point in more detail later.
The point is that going from 0-100 increases your chances of getting injured by a lot. The more time we spend at 0 and the less time we spend ramping back up to 100, the more likely we are to get hurt.
Active Recovery: The Smarter Way to Heal
A more effective rehab plan focuses on an active recovery, progressively reintroducing movement and load in a safe and controlled way.
Active recovery after injury means:
Rebuilding strength and mobility
Retraining balance and stability
Gradually reloading tendons and ligaments
Restoring confidence and performance
We see it all the time; athletes who stay active in rehab often return faster and perform better than those who just wait.
How Our Bodies Adapt (for Better or for Worse)
If you lift weights, you get stronger.
That’s probably the easiest example to point to for how our bodies adapt to stress. Bones, muscles, tendons all get stronger through gradual progressive loading. If you jump and cut, tendons and ligaments get stronger and thicker.
So what happens when you do nothing? Muscles shrink, tendons weaken, and even your bones lose density. That’s why returning to play after just resting and without proper loading sets you up for re-injury.
If you rest for weeks or months, keep in mind that your body isn’t going to be the same as it was before. That’s why an active rehab plan is so critical.
Think of the high-school pitcher who rests a month because of elbow pain, starts to feel “better,” throws hard again and feels the same pain.
Think of the soccer player who says they have “bad ankles” because they are always getting sprains. They rest, even wear a brace, but just can’t seem to avoid spraining the ankle again.
The injured body part might be less painful than it was initially, but is it really any more ready than it was prior to the injury? I’d argue that it’s probably less capable of withstanding the stress of the sport than it was before the injury took place.
How Do You Know You’re Actually Ready to Return to Play?
Here’s the million-dollar question: how do you know you’re really ready to return to your sport?
If you rested for an arbitrary amount of time (two weeks, four weeks, six weeks), who decided that was enough? Or too much? Yes, each tissue has an average healing time, and we can guesstimate a time frame off that, but how do you know that was the right amount of time for you?
Without testing the actual movements and demands of your sport, you’re guessing. Pain-free doesn’t always mean performance-ready. If your arm hurts when you throw a baseball, of course you won't feel the pain once you stop throwing. You've removed the thing that makes it hurt but that won't tell you when your arm is ready to do that painful thing again.
That’s where return-to-sport testing comes in. Controlled testing helps you (and your therapist) know when you’re truly ready:
Can your injured limb produce the same strength as the healthy side?
Can you handle sport-specific loads (pitching volume/intensity, sprinting, jumping, or cutting) without pain or compensation?
How does your body respond the next day?
Objective testing can drastically reduce re-injury risk.
Because time doesn’t determine readiness, performance does.
What an Ideal Sports Injury Rehab Plan Looks Like
Initial protection and rest: Reduce pain and swelling, but keep gentle motion if possible.
Early loading: Introduce safe, controlled movement and light muscle activation.
Progressive strength and conditioning: Gradually restore strength, balance, and movement patterns.
Sport-specific training: Simulate real demands (throwing, sprinting, cutting).
Return-to-play testing: Use measurable criteria to confirm readiness and reduce re-injury risk.
This approach helps you recover faster, stay strong, and return with confidence.
Speaking of, lack of confidence can be a huge risk factor by the way. But hey, that's a tale for another time... or maybe not. Who knows?
Key Takeaway: Rest Is Only One Part of Recovery
At Bridge, we help athletes bridge the gap between rehab and performance. Because the goal isn’t just to heal, it’s to come back better, confident, and more prepared.
So yes, rest after an injury, but don’t just rest… pretty please.
Move smart, stay active, and let your body adapt the way it’s meant to.
If you’re unsure whether you’re ready to return to play, or you keep re-aggravating old injuries, reach out. We’ll help you figure out what your body’s ready for — and get you back safely, faster, and stronger.
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