Ignoring Your Problem Won’t Make It Go Away

How is ignoring the actual problem working out for you? Ok, not that you are fully ignoring the problem, but you kind of are! 

Most people I talk to who have been unsuccessful resolving injuries are doing at least one of the following: 

• Resting, icing, and taking anti-inflammatory medication. 
• Stretching, rolling, and whatever exercises they have found with random searches on YouTube or from asking friends what to do. 
• Seeing a clinician who is using a ‘cookie cutter’ approach and only addressing the symptoms. 

• Working with someone who does not know their sport and has therefore not addressed any technique or movement related issues that might be going on. 
• Doing whatever you are doing from the above for months on end without success. 

If all you are looking to do is become a functional human again, then your methods might work out just fine for you. But if you are looking to get back to training and racing again, you may want to consider a different approach – an approach that involves fixing the root cause of the problem. 

Why your random stretches and exercises are not working 

I am not saying the exercises you find online are bad exercises. I have a lot of exercises on YouTube myself. But there are two big things to remember: 1) They might not be the exercises to fix YOUR problem, and 2) If your body is doing its normal compensations, the exercises are not going to be effective. 

Issue 1) Every injury has a cause. Every exercise has a purpose. If the cause and the purpose do not match up, then the exercise will not be appropriate to fix your problem. Yes, you might get lucky and pick appropriate ones for you, but the frequency of that happening is very rare. 

Issue 2) Your body has habitual movement patterns and your body has compensations that it has created over the years from any mobility deficits, strength deficits, or past injuries you have had. Without knowing what your body is doing and knowing how to correct it, it is very difficult to break those habits when doing exercises. If you continue your same patterns that got you injured while you do your exercises, they will not have the impact you are looking for them to have. 

Why the ‘cookie cutter’ approach is not working 

Unfortunately, there are way too many clinicians who see an area of pain and automatically go to a specific plan of manual therapy and a certain set of exercises. 

For example, someone with knee pain is given bridges, clamshells, and squats because the glutes are weak. If the issue is truly a weak glutes issue, then cool, those exercises might work. But there are many other things to think about, including what the foot is doing, why the glutes are not doing their job, and what a person’s walking gait and running technique looks like. 

If the time is not taken to answer the question of why and truly figure out the root cause of an injury, the pain will either not resolve or take a lot longer than necessary to go away. 

Why you need a movement assessment on your technique 

How you move matters, especially if your injury has something to do with your training. 

If you were injured running and no one is looking at how you are running from a whole body standpoint, then your pain is likely not going to stay away. If you injured your shoulder and no one is looking at what your shoulder is doing (or not doing) when you are going through the different demands you place upon it when training, then your pain will likely return when you return to activity. 

Getting you pain free with normal movement is great, but until someone assesses how you are moving in your training, your pain will likely return when you return to activity. 

Are you ready to do something different, but not sure what to do? Let’s chat! Schedule a FREE Discovery Call with Brianne Showman to discover what your best next steps are.