What Have You Done for Me Lately?

[Guest]

by Mike Napierala, PT, SCS, CSCS, FAFS

That’s exactly the question I’ve posed to a few patients this past week.

I’ve shared this concept before but since it’s come up so often recently I thought I’d share it again with all of you. In fact, I just today listened to a great guy, we’ll call him Jim, who had two knee surgeries and was dismayed at his knees swelling up and getting sore after a weekend of increased activity cleaning his boat.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?

It’s really a powerful saying to keep in your mind when you’re recovering from an injury or surgery. Probably not quite what Janet Jackson was thinking when she sang that song decades ago.

When you’re returning to activity it’s really helpful to first get perspective on what a realistic expectation might look like for your activity level. If you don’t start with that, then you’re doomed to make the BIG MISTAKE of using other potentially loftier visions of what you can tolerate as your measuring stick.

Here’s some of those comparisons I’ve heard patients and athletes relying on as they walked the down the path of yet another flare-up.

That’s what I USED TO BE ABLE to do.

LAST YEAR I could.

But that’s what MY FRIENDS CAN DO.

BEFORE I GOT HURT I could.

EVERYONE ELSE MY AGE can.

I REALLY MISS being able to.

I JUST THOUGHT I’D TRY to see if I could.

You know the feeling. Remembering what you used to be able to do. Feeling “this close” to reaching your goal. Almost being there. Hoping you’re close enough to just skip those last few steps of responsibility and give it a try.

Patience is difficult. It feels like you’ve waited so long already, doesn’t it?

But when you’re about to go try an activity, a job at work, a chore at home, your favorite recreation or fitness activity, a hobby, and actually resuming a sports practice or game, you’ve got to START OUT by answering one key question:

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?

That’s right. Ask and answer that and you’re well on your way to continued successes. You can actually pretend you’re talking to that recovering body part. I told Jim to pretend he was talking to his knees.

When is the last time you cleaned your boat and felt fine afterwards?

When is the last time you spent that many hours of constant activity like that without symptoms?

How much of that same activity have you most recently done and felt good after?

For Jim, it became pretty apparent that he hadn’t done 6 hours of frequent up and down and squatting and lifting and getting in odd positions like he needed to clean his boat since long before his surgery 2 months ago. He realized he didn’t really have ANY recent examples of his knees holding up well to that sort of activity demand.

Had he asked his knees that question before his boat cleaning escapades he likely would’ve done no more than an hour or two of work and then taken a break to see how his knees were responding.

Ask yourself:

What evidence do I have that what I’m about to do is only a small leap of faith from what I’ve recently been able to do successfully?

Is what I’m about to do a small leap or a big leap from what I just showed I can do well in the past days or weeks?

Thinking this way can really help you avoid those pitfalls that put you even further from getting back to your PEAK PERFORMANCE!