“No Pain, No Gain” Often Does Not Apply
When dealing with rehabbing an injury the old saying, “No Pain, No Gain” often does not apply…
This idea refers to exercising hard enough to feel the burn or a considerable amount of muscle fatigue and soreness.
Pain, on the other hand, is our body’s natural indicator stating that something is wrong.
In the Physical Therapy world our goal is to activate muscles while performing pain free exercises guiding you to return back to your prior function.
Often times when rehabilitating patients who have that old exercise cliche mentality they believe they can go harder, stronger, and faster which may lead to abnormal pain, soreness, re-injury, or even additional injury.
Instead of a “No Pain, No Gain” mentality we at Peak Performance Physical Therapy promote a “Sing, Not Scream” attitude.
This means that we are activating your muscles by performing pain free comfortable exercise with out causing further tissue damage or injury.
This attitude towards exercise will enable you to return back to work, sport, and function as quick as possible.
BLOG: Do You Feel Lucky? Part II
Last time I told you about Bob…Remember him?
He was the business owner who came in for Physical Therapy because his back pain stopped him from concentrating on his business.
Bob’s symptom of pain was relieved in just 3 visits and he decided he was “good to go.”
I wanted you to realize that just because your pain has gone under the radar that sometimes many of the same problems that REALLY CAUSED your problem to begin with are still lurking inside, ready to little by little, cause your “injury” and eventually your pain to come back again.
It often takes just a few more visits to shore up a solid home program to help you address some of those underlying PROBABLE SUSPECTS that we find in our evaluations. Keep in mind, we can’t always address or even find those causes initially until your pain is reduced enough.
But if a patient like Bob feels so great with his pain lessened and then stops Physical Therapy before we can more fully address those PROBABLE SUSPECTS, then I’m afraid that someday down the road he’s likely to have to see me again for the same thing.
I think Bob was hoping he’d luck out in the future and that everything would stay alright.
In a similar case, John stayed pain free for the first four weeks after he left. Then one day, as he was bending over to pick up a piece of paper, his luck ran out! You have heard this story from someone else I am sure, because it is something we hear a lot too. “I just bent down to pick up something small and insignificant and then BAM!
The good news is with some strengthening, and some education, John and Bob won’t need to rely on luck anymore. They would have the tools, skills, strength, and knowledge now to keep their backs symptom free!
So the old adage “do you feel lucky today….well do ya?” …. save that for Clint Eastwood, and arm yourself with what you need to maintain your function and keep yourself pain free!
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