It doesn’t matter if you pound the pavement, pump iron, or are a spin-class junkie. Sooner or later, something on you is bound to pop, crack, or slip (including a few choice expletives from your mouth). According to research from the Women’s Injury Study, exercise injuries strike most women—and the more you work out, the greater the chances one will hit you.

Any exercise injury sucks, sure, but the bigger fitness-wrecker is how we deal with them. See, when women get hurt, we tend to do one of two things: push through the pain or stop working out altogether. “We often assume that exercise is all or nothing,” Jill Tracey, Ph.D., a professor of Kinesiology & Physical Education at Wilfrid Laurier University. “We go all out, and if we can’t, we throw in the towel.” That go-hard-or-go-home mentality—besides keeping your kitchen stocked with painkillers and frozen peas—does your body zero favors. Pushing through an exercise injury further stresses out upset tissues, potentially turning what could have been a temporary annoyance into a permanent defect, Tracey says. And on the flip side, taking a sabbatical from your sweat sessions not only assures you’ll lose your fitness gains, but it could end up allowing excessive atrophy at the injury site.

Luckily, there’s a third option to injury recovery: taking a detour. A fitness-savvy way of keeping you moving despite any malady—be it runner’s knee, tennis elbow, or a pulled hammie—injury workarounds target the parts of your body that are in tip-top shape while avoiding any moves that put undue stress on your sensitive spots.

“By working around an injury, you can keep progressing and working toward your goals,” says trainer Chase Karnes, C.S.C.S, C.P.T. “With time, your injury will heal and you could potentially come back in even better shape.”

Exercise Around Injury to Stay Fit on the Sidelines

Sure, your medicine-ball-sized knee could use some R&R, but that doesn’t mean the rest of your body does. “When it comes to fitness, you either are progressing or regressing. It takes a lot of time to build up fitness levels, and it doesn’t take very long to regress,” says Karnes. That regression’s called detraining, and while the exact amount of time it takes to occur depends on your pre-injury workout, fitness level, and vital stats, one Journal of Applied Physiology study suggests that easing up for just two weeks can significantly reduce your cardiovascular fitness, lean muscle mass, and insulin sensitivity.

But keeping at your workout can also do your injury good. “The better shape you are in, the quicker you are going to recover,” says Michael Silverman, P.T., M.S.P.T.., a physical therapist at the Hospital for Special Surgery James M. Benson Sports Rehabilitation Center. “Strong muscles can help take some of the pressure off of an injured joint or muscle. Plus, by increasing your heart rate, exercise pushes extra blood through your body to get damaged tissues the nutrients they need to repair themselves from injury.” In fact, exercise injury workarounds can strengthen your bum… whatever… even if you never move it, according to a 2012 review in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. Call it a neurological miracle: When you work one tricep, glute, or shoulder, your body transfers know-how and strength to the other one.

To up your fitness and recovery, Silverman recommends working around exercise injuries for four to eight weeks (and longer if you’re really torn up!). Then, slowly start integrating your blown body part back into the mix. The key is easing into it—and listening to your body along the way. Start with a few reps of a no-weights move, and over a matter of weeks, work up to more reps and higher intensity. After each workout, give yourself two to three days to gauge how your body responds to the stress before pushing things further, he says.

RELATED: The Truth About Weightlifting Injuries

Also, remember that post-injury, you don’t have to do the same workouts you used to. In fact, you probably shouldn’t, says Mike Boyle, a strength and conditioning specialist who has worked with the Boston Red Sox and U.S. Olympic hockey teams. “There are a million options as to how you’ll work a given muscle. If one exercise hurts, that’s your body’s way of telling you to work it in a different way.” To make sure you don’t over-stress current or old exercise injuries, celeb trainer Brett Hoebel recommends using a 1-to-10 scale: If any exercise ups your injured body part’s pain level by more than two points, you need to try another move.

RELATED: Exercises for Back Pain

This Is Your Brain on Injury

Injuries don’t just hurt you physically. They can be a big hit to your mental fitness as well. “If fitness is part of how you see yourself and how you feel good about yourself, an exercise injury can be a big blow to your ego,” says sport-psychology consultant Alan Goldberg, Ed.D. And just as exercise can benefit brain health, taking time off can deprive your noggin of feel-good endorphins and neurotransmitters and, according to animal studies, even dull brain function.

What evolves is a vicious mind-body cycle of destruction: Stress and depression can weaken your immune system as well as spur widespread inflammation throughout the body, Tracey says. And since your immune system is responsible for clearing out inflammation around your injury to jumpstart the repair process, that bad mood can end up postponing your “healed by” date, she says. Enter, an even worse disposition.

To use your mind to strengthen your body, Goldberg recommends thinking of exercise injuries as an opportunity to shore up the skills, sports, or body parts you normally skip. For example, when one of Goldberg’s clients had a shoulder injury that kept her from practicing her strokes for several months, he put her on a floatie and told her to kick. She came back from her injury swimming laps stronger than ever. “She had taken a weakness—her kicking—and turned it into a strength,” Goldberg says. (9) Plus, a 2013 study from the University of Buffalo shows that people who have gone through some adversity are mentally tougher than those who haven’t, better handing mental and physical stress (like that marathon on your bucket list) and maintaining a brighter outlook on life. “By coming through an injury, many women discover an inner strength they didn’t know they had and actually get better at future challenges,” Tracey says.

Whatever exercises your injury detour entails, set goals for yourself—both in terms of your injury recovery and general fitness—so you can watch yourself move forward and regain some sense of control, recommends Goldberg. To help keep you accountable, schedule your sweat sessions with a workout buddy. Plus, the companionship can help fend off the feelings of isolation that often accompany an exercise injury. “Exercise and social interaction is a powerful combo for overcoming the mental hurdles of an injury,” Tracey says. Remember, though, comparing your performance to anyone else’s can only hurt your mental state and recovery. “Stay in the now,” says Goldberg. “What is right now might not be ideal, but you will come out of it stronger if you focus on yourself.”

Exercise Around Injury: Effective Exercise Injury Swaps

Try these simple exercise swaps to work around an injured…

Knee
Swap: Walking Lunges
For: Static Lunges

Lessen rotational stress on the knee joint by keeping it stationary in an isometric lunge. Keep your knee behind your toes, by taking a greater stance, to reduce it further.

> Place your hands on your hips and stand tall with your shoulders back. Step forward with your right leg and slowly lower  as far as you can comfortably. Hold, then repeat on the opposite side.

RELATED: 4 Knee-Friendly Exercise Modifications for Knee Pain Relief

Back
Swap: Weighted Squats
For: Bodyweight Squats

Ditching the weights takes the pressure off of your low back and keeps it on your legs.

> Stand tall with your feet shoulder-width apart and your arms straight out in front of you at shoulder level. Keeping your torso upright and your weight in your heels, push your hips back and bend your knees to lower your torso until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Pause, then push yourself up to start.

Shoulder
Swap: Tricep Dips
For: Tricep Pushdowns

Extreme angles can aggravate the shoulder; this swap removes the joint from the equation.

> While standing, grip a bar attached to a high pulley cable with your hands shoulder-width apart. With your elbows tucked against your sides, push the bar down until your forearms are parallel to the floor (the start position). Push down on the bar until your arms are extended straight down, elbows slightly bent. Pause, then slowly return to start.

Wrist
Swap: Pushups
For: Dumbbell-Grip Pushups

By gripping dumbbells, your wrists stay in their most natural position: straight and facing in.

> Get into a pushup position with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, arms straight, and hands directly below your shoulders on a set of forward-facing dumbbells (use ones with flat edges, like hex dumbbells). Keeping your core braced and elbows close to your sides, lower your torsoexer until your chest almost touches the floor. Pause, then push back up the starting position as quickly as possible.

Elbow
Swap: Bench Press
For: Dumbbell Fly

Works the chest while keeping your elbows stationary to reduce stress.

> Lie on your back with your arms extended directly above your shoulders, palms facing in. Keeping your elbows still and slightly bent, slowly lower the dumbbells to your sides until they’re in line with your shoulders. Pause, then raise to return to start.

Ankle
Swap: Calf Raises
For: Farmer’s Walk on Toes

Strengthens your calves without repeatedly flexing and extending the ankle joint.

> Grab a pair of dumbbell and hold them at your sides, palms facing each other. Raise your heels and, keeping your core engaged, slowly walk forward on the balls of your feet.

Signs of an Impending Exercise Injury

It hurts so good…until it doesn’t. Here’s how to tell if the pain you’re feeling is the wrong kind.

shIt’s Been Three Days
Delayed onset muscle soreness, caused by microscopic tears in your muscles, is necessary for muscle growth and lasts anywhere from 24 to 72 hours, Hoebel says. “If the pain persists, it’s not DOMS—and could be an injury.”

It’s Sharp

Think of pain as your body’s alert system: If the messages are sharp and shooting, something (like an injury) must really be wrong, Karnes says.

It’s Near a Joint

Most exercise injuries stem from overuse, and prey on bones and tendons, says Boyle. That makes any pain in or around a joint cause for concern.

It Hurts When You Aren’t Moving
Pain during a run is one thing, but if you’re lying in bed with an aching anything, some real damage is likely at play, says Silverman.