Why you Should Not - Stop - Moving When You Get Injured!
No One is guaranteed a pain-free journey through life.
My great grandmother used to tell me this quote or phrase, and I didn't understand it as a kid
- now as a physiotherapist, coach and performance coach I find myself repeating this to clients often.
We are all bound to have some mishaps, injuries, aches or pains along our journey. And anyone who's serious about fitness will experience injuries and nickels from time to time. While training through pain and trying to ignore it only makes things worse. Learning to listen to your body and train around pain instead of through pain will help you recover faster and let you maintain your fitness levels and most often come back stronger.
After this read you will have a better understanding on what kind of training you CAN do with an injury, and how to approach training to come back stronger from a setback.
First let’s talk about what is pain.
I’ll try to keep it simple here :)
Pain is our bodies alert system it is a sensation, a feeling where your body is telling you "Dude, I don’t Like That" This response is a combination of a signal and our interpretation of this signal.
This signal comes from our sensors or nerve endings detecting poor chemical situation or damaged tissue in your skin, joint, organ, tendon or muscle.
And our interpretation of this signal, the emotional state we are in has a big influence on how we experience the pain, the more fear and scare city we build up, the worse this pain will seem.
It is important to not to ignore pain, and shove it under the rug. Ignoring this alert system will most likely cause more damage than good, and if you are taking pain killers - you need to be even more careful to not overstep the bodies limits to avoid causing more damage.
Are You Training with pain? Learn to listen to your pain sensations: 4 rules of pain when training.
As mentioned pain can be caused by different structures and has different onset pattern. Pain can range from being a tingling, burning to a dull ache or a very sharp and intense feeling like a stab from a knife blade. Each structure, muscle, nerves, bones and tendons have its own normal "pain response" and it is important to differentiate and identify what structure is complaining to respond appropriately.
The onset pattern can be acute, idiopathic or come on gradually over a long time and this also has an effect on how you can train around it and with it. A trained professional will be able to guide you on how to tune in to these factors.
Why any advice that tells you to JUST take time off from an activity is a bad advice.
The internet is full of misinformation. I know you are reading this article on the internet, but realize that the only people truly qualified to diagnose and treat your injury are medical professionals. My best advice is Don’t ask Google what you should be asking qualified individual.
When you seek out a primary-care physician, physical therapist or chiropractor for help with your injury. They’ll have the education and experience to point you in the right direction, that advice should include a actionable approach that has some steps along the way whether that entails certain exercises, therapies or medication. And it is important that you find a professional that can guide you through the process, that you can see yourself doing these steps, and that you are ready to trust in the process.
If your doctor or medical professional JUST says, take x amount of time off and then gradually start again, find someone else and take a second opinion. I recommend doing your homework and find someone who has experience working with active people and athletes; they’ll understand that you want to get back to exercising as soon as possible and be more proactive with their recommendations.
Here is why Just Resting, and not training at all is a bad idea!
In the past years one of the biggest mistakes people make when injured is stopping their training altogether. In fact, complete rest can often make pain worse. Don´t get me wrong there are injuries that require you to take time of LOADING a certain area or AVOIDING a painful movement and you SHOULD listen to your doctor prescribed complete rest.
But studies show your body’s ability to recover and heal itself relies largely on your cardiovascular health, metabolism and immune system — all of which are bolstered by exercise. This is why studies found that chronic pain patients who performed more exercise and activities experienced less chronic pain that those who exercised less. This challenged a long-held belief that rest was the best cure for pain.
So instead of becoming inactive, curling up in bed with Netflix and an ice pack and junk food, continue to train whatever doesn’t hurt. That may mean avoiding certain exercises, only working certain muscles or reducing the intensity of your workouts. Most often, you can also strengthen, stretch and mobilise to make your road to recovery more smooth.
Even more science things for those interested, you can even do training with only one arm or leg if the other side is hurt. Working out only one limb actually strengthens the other limb too via a phenomena called cross-education. And test subjects INCREASED or MAINTAINED their strength in the painful side, despite not training it at all while casted or immobilised compared to the control group that LOST strength while doing nothing. The lesson? Keep working out, even if it’s only one side at a time.
Come Back Stronger
I hope you can see that the doctors advice, just rest. Is not always the best thing. And I wish really really you share the message with your friend that you shouldn't let an injury hold you back from reaching your goals.
Listen to your body and train smart. Ask for help from the right people, trust in the process and you’ll be back to full strength in no time, even possibly slightly better.
Read More? and want to prevent an injury? find out what is your stiff ______ (insert body part) trying to tell you
Already struggling with an injury and been told to rest? I offer 20 min free consultations both in person and online through zoom. Let me help you figure out what the next steps on your road to recovery can be!
