Playing Injured
February 19, 2009
This morning I fought the urge to bonk my friend on the head when she said she was trying to decide whether to work out even though she was nursing a pulled hamstring.
She wondered aloud, in an unnecessarily loud, slightly deranged tone of voice, if it is better to do her regular workout since she was on the precipice of insanity from her week of no post-workout feel-good endorphins. She reasoned that the risk of re-injury was possibly worth keeping her children from being taken in by Children’s Services, which from the crazed look in her eyes, was definitely a possibility.
On the one bicep, not exercising when you’ve been doing it for decades contributes to what I call the “Don’t Feel Like It Syndrome” where the less you do, the more you feel like s__ and therefore the less you feel like doing, leading to couch time.
But on the other bicep, a workout that reinjures you leads to even more of what you don’t want.
Of course, most athletic folks need enforced rest at some point in the course of their sweating career and the more active you are and the older you get, the more likely some injury will sneak up on you and in some cases, it’ll wallop you with a snap, break or tear of some vital connective body part that totally short-circuits your exercise routine. Many fitness buffs, especially with the first injury, will try to limp their way through and they end up even more screwed (up).
Injury is a powerful teacher. If it taps us on the shoulder and we ignore it, it starts nudging, then shoving and eventually slamming us into facing what is happening in our body. Can anyone say, “Game Over”?
As we age though, we hopefully cultivate a few character traits that are incomprehensible to most young athletes under the age of twenty. They are the twin lions of aging in general and fitness rehab specifically. They are Patience and Wisdom. These two cousins will help you stop the drill sargeant in your brain when the lowly ranking private in our hamstring tries to respond with “Yes,Sir!” but instead says,”Ouch!”
With luck, we learn to care more about feeling good rather than looking good and as anyone who has suffered from chronic athletic pain can tell you, feeling good is EVERYTHING. Feeling good beats looking good hands down everytime. Just ask the next person you pass on the street that is wearing Merrils and they will tell you the same.
So what did I say to my friend as she debated strapping on her nikes for a run? I rested my hands on her shoulders, told her to get her bathing suit on and hit the pool.
Resting a hamstring doesn’t mean resting the whole body. So next time you find yourself sidelined with an injury, find something that totally rests the body part that needs to heal.
If your knee hurts, do upper body strengthening (push ups come to mind or yoga). If your shoulder hurts, do spinning or ride your bike.
The bottom line is that you can’t do “more” until your body is out of pain. Then when you are pain-free, you won’t need “more” because feeling better is “more.”
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