"I'll Just Rest It"

[Guest]

by Mike Napierala, PT, SCS, CSCS, FAFS

A week doesn't go by when someone doesn't say they'd gone through that thought process at some point after being in pain.  

"I'LL JUST REST IT"

Sounds reasonable. Even pretty diligent, right? What well-trained, university-degreed, respected Physical Therapist or Physician or Athletic Trainer wouldn't give that advice? If something is hurting, a good starting point is to rest it a bit and see if it resolves on its own...if the body will do what it's been gifted to do and heal and the trouble disappears. Right?  

Makes sense. If that's the advice from paid professionals, then for you to ponder the very same idea deserves a hearty pat on the back. And very often, if a problem or a tweak you experience is caught quickly enough, a little rest gives your body just what it needed, a brief period of time to recover without continued overloads bothering that angry tissue.  

But as we often say at Peak Performance: You want to NOT ONLY feel better, but you want to BE BETTER!

That's where some people get in trouble. You might have even done this yourself. I know you've fallen into this trap too. You tweak something and decide to back off a bit. When it disappears quickly, then usually the return to work or fun often goes pretty well. What about when that "rest a little" turns into having to do that for weeks or longer?

I recently had a great guy in the clinic, we'll call him Ron. He loved running and had unfortunately developed some knee pain that wouldn't resolve. He pushed through it for weeks and weeks and it just got so bad that he caved in and accepted the reality that his body just needed some rest before trying to run more. He absolutely hated the idea of giving in, of letting this stupid pain get the best of him. Inside he feared the time off would essentially bring him back to ground zero of his conditioning, rendering all those months of training an essential waste of time. He hesitated committing to this break in training that might compromise his preparation for that upcoming race in a few months.  

But there was just no realistic way he could push his knee further into pain.  He'd stopped so many runs. Reduced down to slow jogs and even intermittent walks just to manage his symptoms.  Enough was enough.  He finally gave in and accepted this temporary fate.REST. Ugh. He hated it.

From a professional rehab side I'd say, although it took Ron a bit too long to face the reality of his knee's unhappiness, he was being humble and responsible in foregoing his running and shutting things down temporarily. He'd tried biking and elliptical and other cross-training options but at that point everything hurt.  

But here's where Ron WENT WRONG. That knee did finally feel better. After about a week and a half his knee pain was virtually gone with walking and stairs. His mind started teasing him over whether he might be ready to run again. By about three weeks into his rest period, the pain was fully gone so Ron decided to just do a short 3-mile run to see how things felt. He figured staying under the 5 miles he more often ran on a short day was being pretty responsible.

Ron felt good, but the question was  whether Ron's body actually was good.

There's a difference! Feeling good vs being good. Not necessarily the same. You can LACK PAIN.  

BUT Lacking Pain does not equal BEING GOOD.

That's where Ron made the mistake. That's where I've made that mistake. Maybe you too. The pain goes away. We feel good.  We're quick to forget that something wasn't right to begin with. Something was causing that joint or that tendon to become irritated in the first place.  

What was it? What's out of whack that's causing this overload?  Ron should've been asking himself that.

What's making my left knee hurt when my right knee has taken just as many runs, just as many impacts.

Being Good. That's really the ultimate point right? Feeling good is just PART of that. But it isn't the final total. It's a step on the way to Being Good.  

If you or someone you know is having trouble getting back to what they love and simply resting for a bit maybe even seemingly worked, but then the symptoms came back again. Don't get caught in that yo-yo of activity and rest, activity then rest. GET BEYOND merely feeling better and make sure your body is better  

You can come in for an evaluation and we can check how well things are working. Even without pain, we often find areas that are lacking in strength or mobility or control that can be the underlying cause for why some body part eventually breaks down. And usually it doesn't take very much work to have a significant impact and turn what once was a limitation holding you back into an asset that helps secure your success!

Call us at 218-0240 to get beyond just resting to the point of feeling better 

and get to truly BEING BETTER!