Daily Maestroism
DM #106
Tuesday, September 6th, 2016
DM #106: slow your roll and stop trying to strengthen your way to a pain-free existence. The fact of the matter is, the more people that I treat, the more apparent it becomes the strength usually isn't the problem, especially when I'm working with my CrossFitters.
My dude @joelavapt had an excellent post about this a few weeks ago, and I spent the better part of this afternoon discussing this very concept with a good friend who is suffering from some chronic pain. All too often when something hurts, we immediately assume that it is weak and try to strengthening it like crazy. But why?
I haven't seen any babies asking to use the squat rack recently, and yet they're not crawling around complaining about their low back pain. True, they do possess “original strength”, but my point is that you don't have to look like Arnold in order to be pain-free.
Assess before you address. Figure out if something is truly weak, or if muscles are just firing out of sequence, a.k.a. do you have a motor control this function. For all my PT's out there, stop throwing 1 million exercises at your patients, aimed at “strengthening their core”, and then wondering why they continue to have back pain despite the fact that they've seen you for 12 visits. Oh, they must not be doing their home exercises ?
Is it your shitty job that's causing you stress, which is causing you to contract your muscles and experience chronic pain and discomfort? Is it your belief of “no pain no gain” that is causing you to continue working out despite persistent discomfort and possible injury?
When it comes to treating pain, there's a whole lot more to it than the size of your muscles. Don't forget that.
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