Don’t you just hate injuries? It prevents you from doing your day-to-day activities, but that shouldn’t stop you from staying active.
Yes, that is possible! We manage to help patients to figure out how to stay active despite their injuries. However, we practised caution in her day-to-day regimen. So, how do you exercise around pain?
Using Pain As Your Guide
If you have pain during, directly after, or within 24 hours of completing your workout – that means either the volume, intensity and/or exercise selection was too high and you must revert.
For instance: If you normally ran 4 miles, and at mile 1 you had pain, you must decrease the distance you are running to below 1 mile to prevent any discomfort from occurring.
If you are continuously overloading tissue into pain, you will continue to make your injury worse. This occurs because you are not giving the tissues adequate time to heal and if the forces are high enough, it can cause more damage.
Soreness is okay — but not too much
Any soreness in the area that was injured less than a 4 out of 10 soreness level means you are putting positive stress into the tissue. Secondly, for this stress to be positive, the soreness should not exceed 48 hours.
If you were injury free, you could have soreness that lasts longer than 48 hours, but for healing tissue, this is an indicator of negative stress and poorly effects healing.
Forget Your Previous Experience/Physical Activity Levels
When returning to exercise, don’t start where you left off. Remember every tissue has a limit for how much force can be applied before we experience pain.
If you return right away to your pre-injury activity level, you may still experience pain.
Exercise helps you maintain healthy body weight, however, with a pending injury, caution must be practised at all times. Putting on extra pounds can slow healing and make some pain worse.
Remember to listen to your body when exercising and participating in physical activities and avoid over-exercising. If something doesn’t feel right or hurts, listen to medical advice right away.
DISCLAIMER: This article contains general information and is not intended to replace your doctor’s advice. Consulting with your medical providers about training around pain is recommended.