Does it Hurt? It only hurts when I run. A common sense, practical approach to fitness, sports, exercise, and training pain.

Pain Injury Relief

I'm a big fan of Mike Boyle, the world renown strength coach for the Boston Bruins, Special Consultant to the Boston Red Sox, and owner of Mike Boyle Strength & Conditioning which one could argue is the best and most successful Fitness, Sports Medicine, Sports Performance companies in the United States. I remember at a lecture he said that he stands on the shoulder of the giants that came before him. To me, he is one of the giants and I have learned so much from him and plan on continuing to learn as much as I can. I truly hope that one day I can stand on his shoulders and teach as powerfully, sincerely, and effectively as he does. I'm working as hard as I know how to make it happen. Mike wrote a blog titled: "Does It Hurt?" I want to share with you his simple message on Pain Injury Relief. This is a recap of the blog. You can read the short blog in it's entirety by clicking below: http://www.bodybyboyle.com/articles?show=20 Mike explains that because of his back ground he is often asked sports rehab questions all the time about Pain Injury Relief and he goes on to say that most of the time people ignore his advice because the advice does not contain the answer they want. For example , a client may tell him "It only hurts when I run" and he would say things like "Don't run." According to Mike and all of this is according to Mike pretty much. "People don't call for advice, they call for agreement or consensus." I'm paraphrasing here. If they don't get the answer they're looking for, they simple call someone else until they do. This personally kind of drives me nuts. Do you know how many runners I know who do the following:

1. Run
2. Get Hurt
3. Take Time Off & Don't Change Anything
4. Run
5. Get Hurt
6. Take Time Off & Don't Change Anything
7. Run
8. Get Hurt
9. Take Time Off & Don't Change Anything
10. and DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN! AHHHHH!!!

Does it make any sense? I think it was Einstein who said something along the lines of "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." I'm no one to judge. God knows that I've had more than my fair share of "insanity!" That being said, let me share with you one of the most important things that I've learned as a Fitness Coach / Personal Trainer who has really spent a lot of time on pain injury relief, learning movement, sports medicine, and has had the opportunity to work with some of the best Pain Injury Relief sports medicine practitioners in the world including people like Chris Nentarz of Endura Sports, Walter Brown - Director of Physical Therapy at Buffalo Spine and Sports Medicine, Dr. Stuart McGill - the leading authority on low back health and Core Performance in the world, Matt Meyer at Revive WNY, Dr. Gray Cook of Functional Movement Systems, Eric Beard - the former Director of Advanced Education for the National Academy of Sports Medicine, Thomas Meyers who wrote the book Anatomy Trains, Mark Verstegen Founder of Athletes Performance, etc... etc... etc... It's very simple really! Now these are my words. When you have an injury, IT DOES NOT GO AWAY! YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY FIX THE INJURY! IF YOU DON'T, IT WILL KEEP COMING BACK OVER AND OVER AGAIN! For example, let's say my shoulder or shoulders really hurt and I take a few days off only to go back to doing the same things I was doing before they hurt. When I take the few days off, my shoulders don't hurt. They feel a lot better. I haven't fixed the problem though. I just simply haven't been using my shoulders. When I go back to doing what I was doing before they hurt again. No pain injury relief. Shocker! Further, depending on the injury or the pain, it's unlikely that any one fitness / sports medicine discipline can provide the pain injury relief on it's own. When it comes to Pain Injury Relief, you really need a multi-discipline approach. For example, If your low back hurts and you go to a chiropractor you may very well have relief and feel better. However; and I know this from experience you're probably not healed and the relief is temporary. A great chiropractor shouldn't require you to come back every 2 weeks. They should help you fix the problem. If they don't and you keep coming back, you really have to ask yourself if you've got the right chiropractor. The chiropractor may have realigned you or put things back into place but, what ever caused that pain is still lurking and ready to bite you until you fix it. Make no mistake, this is not against Chiropractors. I love chiropractors and get regular chiropractic care. The problem is that the vast majority of Chiropractic Care is incomplete. You most likely need the following: Core Endurance Training, Manual Therapy - both self directed manual therapy from things like a Foam Roll, Lacrosse Ball, Trigger Point Therapy Kit, etc... and Professional Manual Therapy, Corrective Exercise, and probably other functional strength training exercises. You need all of them! It's not nearly as complicated as it sounds. You really need the manual therapy to address the muscle tissues. Another example, you can get all the chiropractic manipulation you would like and stretch incessantly but, you also need to address your tissue health as part of the solution. If you don't I can tell you that you're probably going to feel pain again. Most of the time there is only so much we can do on our own and you may need to go to a professional who can fast track your tissue health and do some things that you can't do. OK. Back to Mike Boyle's blog on Pain Injury Relief. "If you have an injury and are wondering whether or not a certain exercise is appropriate, ask yourself one simple question. Does it hurt?" They key here is that the question "Does it Hurt?" can be answered only YES or NO. If you answer yes, then you are not ready for the exercise, no matter how much you like it." Mike goes on to explain that "any equivocation is a yes." "Things like, after I warm up it goes away, etc... are all YES answers. One of Mike's favorite sayings is "The Secret is that there is no Secret." This is quoted word for word from the blog: "If you are injured and want to get better, use your common sense. Exercise should not cause pain. This seems simple but exercisers ignore pain all the time and rationalize it. Discomfort is common at the end of a set in a strength exercise or at the end of an intense cardiovascular workout. Additional discomfort, delayed onset muscle soreness, often occurs the two days following an intense session. This is normal. This discomfort should only last two days and should be limited to the muscles not the joints or tendons. Pain at the onset of an exercise is neither normal nor healthy and is indicative of a problem. Progression in any strength exercise should be based on a full, pain-free range of motion that produces muscle soreness without joint soreness." It's so imperative that when you have an injury to get a Comprehensive Assessment and Functional Movement Screen from a qualified professional who can really discover the root cause of your injury and / or refer you to someone who can. At TrainSMART, we are proud to be Certified Functional Movement Professionals through Functional Movement Systems and to partner with many truly great Sports Medicine Practitioners in Buffalo, NY. You could say that we are Pain Injury Relief Experts who use a multi-discipline approach. [caption id="attachment_264" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Comprehensive Assessment & Functional Movement Screen[/caption] At TrainSMART Personal Fitness, we are are striving to change the way fitness and sports medicine is done and to provide a complete multi-discipline and somewhat holistic approach to common injuries, aches, and pains. Pain Injury Relief is a very important part of what we do. Please contact me if I can help you in any way! Sincerely, Joe Fox (716) 650 0535