Pain and injury are a part of the human experience. As much as we hope to control this aspect of our lives and ensure a pain free existence, it’s impossible to live without experiencing pain. But if we can manage our pain levels and decrease our risk of injury, we have the opportunity to live a fuller life doing the activities we love. So how do we do this? Look I know it’s not what you want to hear but there is no quick fix, there’s no magic button, it all comes down to consistent and mindful exercises!
If you’re an active person or a person whose experienced pain or injury, then you’ve likely gone to the physio and been given a multitude of tailored exercises to help your situation only to have done them a handful of times and declared them ineffective. Or you may be one of the rare clients who takes it all on board and religiously and diligently follows your rehab program from start to finish. Regardless of where you sit, the reality is that most of us are either not doing these exercises frequently enough or aren’t being mindful and controlled when we are doing them, leading to exercises not being as effective as we know they should be.
When we experience physical pain, we tend to start to move in an instinctively protective way. This can cause some muscles to take on more load than they are used to and over time we can lose that brain-body connection, ending up in a cycle of pain and injury. We lose connection to our deep stabilizing muscles and the larger superficial muscles end up doing more work than they’re designed to do. The real issue is losing this connection for long periods of time, which can drive that pain cycle and contribute to those same reoccurring injuries.
The research backing exercise is substantial and notes many benefits including increased mood, decreased pain, increased circulation and a decreased risk of injury. When a practitioner gives you exercises, it’s because we know that the real work is done by you outside of the treatment room. As a massage therapist with a deep understanding of the human body, I can assist you in decreasing muscle tension and pain temporarily but to achieve any longterm benefit I need to bring your awareness to areas where function could be improved with therapeutic exercise.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of re-establishing that connection between the brain and body to stimulate muscles that could be working more efficiently to help you with pain free living. I know that factoring these extra exercises in to our day can seem impossible but if you are really struggling with reoccurring injury and pain, it is worth it to prioritize even 5 minutes a day because 5 minutes are better than no minutes.
The key to success with your exercises:
- Awareness – Do you know which muscles you are trying to activate? Can you move slowly and with control? Can you feel those muscles working? Can you tune in to other areas of your body that you are holding tension in whilst doing your exercises? Can you soften those areas?
- Consistency – this is key, most therapeutic exercises I recommend are done daily for the first few weeks. We may add to them, adjust them, and change them up but initially doing them every day even for just a few minutes will fast track your recovery and reduce the risk of re-injury in the long term.
- Lifestyle – what else is going on in your life that may be contributing to stress or anxiety and thus increasing pain and protective mechanisms? Try to limit some of these factors to ensure you have the best chance of success with your rehabilitation.
- Make it fun – exercises can be boring which may make them seem like a chore. Try doing them in front of your favourite Tv show, get some friends to join in or listen to an interesting podcast.
Massage therapy can be a helpful tool in conjunction with exercise to decrease acute or chronic pain and recover from injury. On its own, massage is limited to being a temporary measure so a good massage therapist will know how to help you achieve long term effects by following up their treatment with specific and individualized exercises.
