The 5 Seated Barbell Exercises to Use When Injured

The bench press is the best compound movement available when you’re dealing with a lower body injury. It can be great to make a cycle or block of training around this movement whilst dealing with an injury to give yourself something to strive for whilst your function is limited. You may struggle creating as much full body tension prior to the injury and you will not be able to firmly plant both feet on the floor, but this exercise can still be done to a high quality and is an excellent seated barbell exercise variation.

Barbell skull crushers are another exercise that can be done in a lying position on a bench, they target the muscles in the triceps and can be a little uncomfortable so be careful if you’re performing them for the first time. If they continually cause discomfort in the elbows you may want to give this exercise a miss.

The seated landmine press is the best uni-lateral vertical pressing variation with a barbell in a seated position. You may need some help from a training partner to put the bar in your hand once your sat in position depending on the severity of your injury, but this exercise will for sure allow you to maintain and gain muscle mass in the upper body while dealing with an injury.

The barbell floor seated press is a great bi-lateral vertical press variation for those dealing with lower body injuries and can only do seated barbell exercises. However finding the position of this exercise will mean that you have some movement in the knee or foot as it will require you to sit on the floor which can be challenging depending on the severity of your injury. This exercise will also require a lot of core stabilisation which is an added bonus.

The kneeling landmine single arm row is slightly different to the landmine single arm row seen in the video above. It requires you to put both knees on the bench and perform the same horizontal pulling motion. This is just for people who have foot or ankle injuries, those with knee injuries will not be able to perform this exercise.

Training while dealing with an injury can be challenging, being injured is a little demoralising and you will need to be very organised with session planning to not get very bored, very quickly. That being said, it can do wonders for both mood and recovery so make sure you give it a try if your feeling able enough.