The Biggest Injury Recovery Hack
I’m going to try to put myself in your shoes. You’re doing what you love….maybe this is tennis, running, climbing, powerlifting, or some other awesome thing. This activity is everything for you, your mental well-being, and your motivation to continue to get after it! Who knows, maybe this activity even anchors the rest of your lifestyle…and without it your nutrition, sleep, and overall habits go down the drain too. But as long as you have the ability to do these things then you’re good!
Until you get injured…
So you start to panic a little bit, knowing how important it is to stay doing what you love. Maybe you start searching google, asking friends, posting in facebook groups or on instagram to see what people think is the FASTEST way for you to get back to full health. Many times you’ll see and hear things like…
“You need to get an MRI”
”Trust me, I did dry needling and it fixed my issue immediately'“
”Shockwave therapy is the way to go”
…
Then you pick one of these approaches hoping if you just know the diagnosis then you can get a quick fix, or if you just do the right passive therapy you can get a quick fix. By the time you’ve tried these things, you’re two weeks in and your issue is no better, or maybe even a bit worse. So you bounce to the next thing, and this doesn’t work either. Now it has been a month! No change.
We fully understand this,
Nobody wants to be hurt or be uncertain about the timeline to full recovery when doing what you love is so important to you. But often this approach of searching for the quickest fix ends up delaying your recovery and keeping you from what you love for longer. We see this all the time.
Although it may be well intentioned by your friends and family, the reality is just because they got better from a particular method doesn’t mean that method will work for you. We also don’t know why those people actually got better, there’s many reasons why someone’s pain could feel better beyond the treatment they received. For example, time, positive expectations, and modified activity are a just a few.
Here’s what we recommend you do instead…
Invest in the process of slowly getting better and getting back to things. We admit, this isn’t the ‘sexy’ approach and it doesn’t offer a quick fix. However, we call it an investment because you’ll get better quicker and you’ll be better off for it at the end of the process. You’ll get better faster because rather than throwing Hail Mary and HOPING that what you’re doing will help you get better, you’re actually going through a gradual, progressive plan that steers you towards your goals. So although it takes time, that month you spent bouncing around from place to place is a month spent moving closer towards your goal. You’ll be better off for it at the end of the process because you’ll have learned about the principles that led to your recovery and what you can do to manage this going forward. These principles are invaluable because here’s the secret…they’re the same across a lot of pain and injury. This can help you feel more confident when new injuries come up in the future that you’ll be able to work with your physio and navigate this AND if the same injury/pain pops up again you’ll be more equipped to deal with it swiftly.
When you book an assessment with us…
We start by understanding your injury. How did it come to be, what factors contributed to its emergence and are sustaining it currently. We also want to understand your lifestyle and goals….who you are can impact many things from the types of exercises we’ll want to do, to when we’ll aim to do them etc. Next, we’ll assess your issue objectively to see the current pain sensitivity, understand your capacity, and learn more about the specific problem you’re dealing with. Throughout this process, we aim to help you understand what our testing means, and ultimately how we can work together to solve the problem. This is where we game plan together, both about what can be done now and what can be done to gradually get to your goals. Although these plans often seem slow because they’re gradual, the reality is the sooner you invest in the process the sooner you’ll actually get back to what you love.
Let’s get started now, if you’re dealing with pain or injury, contact us and let’s get started…