Nagging Injuries

A lot of the clients I work with have currently or have had in the past a chronic injury or pain that has persisted despite rest, alternative activities, maybe some PT and or massage, and the question that usually comes up is “what’s wrong and will doing this lifting/exercising hurt or help?” Well in short, barring a skeletal injury or trauma to a muscle or ligament, most pain and injury is going to have its root cause in dysfunctional movement. Remember, muscles are what allow you to move and what moves bones around. So positions or movements that cause pain, you need to look at what the muscles around that joint (and the joints above and below) are doing and how they could be causing issues. 

When the problem is approached from this angle, the reasons to do strength training or physical therapy become more obvious. For someone in pain, the best thing they can do is strengthen their muscles and learn how to correct their movements so that the pain subsides and, with the new strength they develop, they can maintain an optimal and pain-free movement pattern. Anyone who says PT doesn’t work has either not stuck with it long enough or consistently enough to see the differences*. 

So the upshot of this is, if you’re hurting or keep getting hurt, chances are something in the way you are moving is “off” and that is causing your body to compensate, which by extension can lead to injury. If this is you, speak to a physical therapist or a coach/trainer who has experience working with pain patients and an understanding of quality movement and ask them if they can help you. Pushing through a nagging injury rarely ends well, so save your future self some discomfort and work to correct the issue now, rather than ignoring it and causing a lot more unhappiness down the line. 

*Some might also say that their PT just wasn’t good. Although I find this reason harder to believe, there are some physical therapists who do not add much to their profession or give their patients the attention or assistance needed to really make full recoveries.