Adapting Winter Training During Injury Rehab: Notes from a Personal Trainer

I didn’t plan to make cycling the center of my winter training.

Boxing and swimming were meant to be anchors this season — both technically demanding, mentally engaging, and deeply tied to how I see myself as an athlete. A persistent shoulder injury changed that plan.

This isn’t a dramatic injury story. It’s the more common, less glamorous kind: something that lingers, flares up, improves, then reminds you that it isn’t resolved yet. At some point, pushing through stops being productive and starts becoming noise.

So I made a decision to step back.

Swimming will come back relatively soon, in a modified and controlled way. Boxing, however, is on a longer-term hold.

That distinction has mattered more than I expected.

Martial arts and combat sports have been part of how I relate to training for a long time — not just as activities, but as structure, discipline, and identity. Stepping away from boxing, even without knowing exactly for how long, has forced a more reflective question than simply “what can I train instead?”

It’s more like: what does this shift ask me to let go of — and what does it change about how I move through my life right now?

That might sound heavy, but these kinds of training decisions often are. They shape daily behavior, priorities, and how effort gets expressed. Over time, they quietly reinforce who you think you are.

The practical response, at least, was clear.

I stepped back from what aggravated the shoulder and committed to letting it heal properly. That meant pivoting my training focus in a way that still allowed intensity, structure, and progress.

For this winter, that has meant leaning fully into cycling.

Cycling lets me train hard without aggravating the shoulder. It also aligns cleanly with my longer-term goals around summer adventure, long days outside, and endurance-based performance — even if it wasn’t what I had originally imagined for this season.

It turns out it scratches many of the same itches I enjoy in technical sports: pacing, efficiency, data, experimentation, and learning how to apply effort intelligently.

Instead of fighting the pivot, I’ve leaned into it.

I’m using the knowledge I already have about conditioning, recovery, and load management, while developing new skills specific to cycling — structured indoor training, heart-rate control, and fueling strategies that actually match the work being done.

The result so far has been unexpectedly positive. I’m training consistently, enjoying the process, and not spending mental energy negotiating with pain signals.

Injury has a way of narrowing your options. But it can also clarify priorities.

Right now, the priority is healing well, staying engaged with training, and building capacity that will carry into the spring and summer. Swimming will return soon, in a form that supports recovery. Boxing may return one day too — but I’m no longer organizing my training, or my identity, around forcing that outcome.

For the rest of this winter, cycling is the focus — and I’ll be documenting what I’m learning along the way. If this kind of training pivot or experimentation is of interest, stay tuned for more writing and updates as the winter progresses.

If you’re navigating your own training pivot — whether due to injury, age, or changing goals — you’re not alone. Sometimes the most productive move is to stop trying to preserve continuity and start building momentum somewhere else.