Do you have an injury? Or perhaps you've been injured before?
We often get the question from people that are injured: "How much training should I do with an injury? Am I causing more damage to my pain or my problem or am I just doing too little to gain any benefit?"
You've asked that question before, right?
To answer the question: Am I doing too much training that could be causing damage to my problem, or actually not doing enough to benefit...
What type of pain are you getting?
There are lots of different types of pains that we have in our bodies. What we call them in neurology is actually note receptors. Those are pain receptors. The different types of pain receptors send different signals to the brain. And depending on the type of pain you get will determine if it's beneficial or if it's damaging to your system.
As a general rule of thumb, if you're getting pain that is more than 7 out of 10, and it's really winding up, we'll normally say you should probably not continue with your exercise. Because you're doing something that's stimulating the nerves that's telling the brain "Oh I really don't like this" and the more you do it, the more you're going to keep sending the pain signal to the brain. And as pain increases, it's telling the brain: "Hey I really don't like this, you better stop because it's really going to start winding things up and making things worse".
If your pain is 7-10 out of 10 then we really need to make sure that you stop and allow your system to recover because you'll probably do more damage than good if you try to exercise. If your pain is really low down - 1,2,3 or 4, continue to exercise but if the pain starts creeping up then you need to be alert and assess how much worse it is getting.
So the first thing to remember is how bad is your pain? Grade yourself so just do a 1-10 scale. If out of 10, it is less than 7 out of 10 pain then you can do something. We're not saying you can do a lot but you can do something.
The Type Of Pain
The second thing we need to look at if someone has pain is the type of pain. Because we have all different types of pain.
We have sharp pains, aches, dull, throbbing. We have all these different types of pain and it really depends on what pain you are actually experiencing.
The ones that we would always be worried about are those that are sharp, stabbing and shooting pains.
Because these pains are really irritating a nerve somewhere and it could be irritating a structure somewhere. And your brain's saying, "I really don't like that". It's going coincide with a high degree of pain. So on that pain scale, you'll probably be a 7, 8, 9 or 10.
If you experience any type of those pains then we'd say you need to stop and really look after yourself because you are essentially damaging something or really winding something up.
But if you get something that's more of a really low level ache or a really low level, dull symptom then it's okay. Because with those, your system should be able to adapt.
But the big but is, we don't want you to throw yourself in a deep end and suddenly really push yourself because you're only in a 'little' bit of pain.
Because remember, the person that knows your body the best is you. And what we do as practitioners is listen to your story and then we assess it to find out what could be the problem and then we determine the best course of action. We don't know your body as well as you do but we do assessments to prove a hypothesis. To find out what could be causing the problem.
The Training
The next thing you need to be very careful with is when we look at different types of trainings. You may find certain positions that may be better for you, and also positions that are worse for you.
We get this question a lot! For example, a lot of people ask us whether yoga or Pilates is good for them. As a general rule of thumb, yes! It's great to do exercise. Exercise is a good thing, exercise is medicine. Exercise will help your systems adapt to the loads that need to be put onto it.
But a big however, and the big disclaimer that we put onto it is remember yoga and Pilates are umbrella terms. Not every exercise is going to be specific to you. Not every exercise is going to be beneficial for you. So when you do these classes, if it brings on your pain, it goes to 7 out of 10, put your hand up and ask for an alternative exercise. If you just continue through a lot of pain and you're winding things up, that might bring you a few steps backwards and we don't want that, we want to make sure you are going forward and getting out of pain as soon as possible.
So this is why it's so important to find out what is irritating you. If you find a certain position that's really sore, let your practitioner know. As soon as you let us know, we
can test the systems and structures in that position, particularly the neurology. And then we can treat it so it doesn't bother you again. So as soon as we make you robust in that position, great you can go back to that class and go and do those exercises and then it shouldn't bother you at all.
So if you have any sort of pain it's about how much exercise and how much training we can do to benefit you so that we can actually get you back to your best.
If you've found this blog post helpful but you're just not quite sure about your specific pain, we would love to reach out to you and help you answer your specific questions to that problem, whatever you may be having. Because everyone has different pains and different problems on that and it should be specific. Receive advice from our sports injury specialists on 01143 211852.
If you know anyone that has an injury and they could benefit from this answer, share this post with them and we will be more than happy to help them with their questions.