Listen To Your Body Before It’s Too Late
Our bodies are actually very smart, if we let them be.
And when it comes to pain – our bodies are the smartest. According to Google – Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. Throbbing, sharp, and achy feelings are all part of our bodies “pain sensors”. And because you LOVE to exercise, we’ll use exercise as the “intense or stimuli” for this blog’s sake.
Normally “pain” comes at a time where something feels uncomfortable, but we can often still do whatever that movement is. Hence, why we know it’s painful.
For example: if on day 1 I did 30 pull ups in a row and on day 2 I did strict press with shoulder pain. My brain is simply sending me a message saying hey feel this, let’s check it out and see whats going on.
One of the key parts about pain is you normally feel it when you are DOING something.
- So if your knee is bothering you, that is something you might notice during squats.
- If your shoulder is bothering you, that is something you might notice during pressing or puling.
- And if your back is bothering you, that is something you would notice during, well, anything.
The point I’m getting at is that you are still able to do those movements, but it hurts.
“Well Coach Selby what’s the alternative?”
Well. Sometimes athletes act like nothing is going on. They feel the pain, discomfort or tightness in a certain area and proceed like nothing is happening. EVENTUALLY, the pain leads to compensation, compensation leads to bad movement, and bad movements lead to POP!
You actually get injured, which is much different than pain that’s telling you to either slow down, mobilize, or take a break.
When you are injured you can’t do something. No longer is your body telling you that an area needs attention. Now it has made the decision for you and shut down.
Example 1: Your knee is bugging you. It’s been sore for a week now. Every time you do squats you feel PAIN. So you finally address it. A week off from weighted squats, a little extra foam rolling/lax balling, and some stretching has you feeling as good as new.
Example 2: Ever since that pull up workout, your shoulder has been giving you all types of problems for about a week. Everytime you go overhead or extend the shoulder you feel PAIN.
However, Coach Byron keeps putting all these shoulder intensive movements in the workouts and the FOMO has you feeling some type of way. So you keep doing all the pull ups, all the snatches, and the pressing while accepting/ignoring the pain. Eventually your body stops sending those little messages to your brain. And then one day KABLAM! That shoulder goes.
Now you CAN’T lift your arm over your head and it even hurts to put your shirt on. When you go get it checked out you find out that you have to take a MINIMUM of 4 weeks off.
Moral of the story is: If you aren’t proactive and address the little things when they need to be addressed, your body will take things into its own hands. Then instead of you voluntarily taking time off for just one week, now you have to take a month off.
My Current Bluprint Athletes: learn to listen to your bodies and embrace that mobility and activation exercises are keys to your long-term success. Make a habit of addressing the little things and your body will LOVE you for it. And when your body loves you…GAINZ happen.
My Future Bluprint Athletes: Bluprint is a fitness program helping busy professionals build the body & lifestyle they can be proud of year round. And part of this program is following a plan that creates long-term results with low risk of injury. Check out more info about the program HERE.
Coach Selby
