Rest Is Overrated!
You get injured…
What is often the first thing you are told to do?
REST!
When someone gets injured, the “safe” thing to say is “Rest it.”
But REST is OVERRATED when it comes to preventing and alleviating injuries.
Now I’m not talking about recovery from workouts or days off during the week.
I’m talking about the fact that anytime someone gets injured, the answer is “Well rest it.”
And don’t get me wrong, certain injuries do need rest.
But rest doesn’t CORRECT the problem. It doesn’t deal with the initial compensation and movement distortions that LED to the injury.
Resting until it feels better and then returning to the exact same poopy movement patterns you were doing before?
Well that is just a recipe to end up injured again!
But that is what happens.
When we are prescribed “rest,” it SHOULDN’T mean doing nothing.
Rest should mean going back to basics and starting to CORRECT the movement patterns that lead to imbalances and compensation and OVERLOAD.
Yea…take time off from the things you are doing wrong. Take time off from OVERLOADING the same area.
But during that time off, work on FIXING the problem.
Start foam rolling overactive muscles. Start working on mobility of other joints that may not have the mobility they should.
Build up supporting muscles and start getting the right muscles working with basic, fundamental movements.
Take this time when you’re RESTING as time to go back to basics, which we never seem to want to do when we are healthy. (Or at least we often get lazy about doing.)
You know how clients don’t actually want to take time off even when they should? Well use that to your advantage and make them do the stuff they need to do to move better!
They can feel like they are at least doing something then AND you’ll make their “REST” actually help prevent the injury from returning!
Plus, exercise actually PROMOTES tissues healing!
Tissues need to be loaded to get stronger and handle day to day tasks and loads. Resting completely takes away any loading to basically every part of your body.
And guess what that means if you aren’t doing any work or load for your body? Your tissues actually get smaller and weaker, which is the OPPOSITE of what you want to happen.
On top of working to correct the imbalances and compensations, you also need to keep your body strong by adding appropriate amounts of load as you are ready so the areas can rebuild strength and stability.
For instance, rehabbing a shoulder injury?
Maybe a plank from the ground isn’t right at that time, BUT instead of doing nothing, your trainer or physio may have you do a plank off an incline. This can train you to engage muscles correctly and add a load your shoulder can handle!
The point is to fix poor movements to prevent future overload, restore proper mobility and regress to REBUILD those weak areas NOT just take time off so everything gets weaker and the pain goes away.
So remember REST doesn’t have to mean sitting on your couch doing nothing. Rest can mean correcting the poor movement patterns and imbalances that led to your injury in the first place!
And if you need help with the 3-part process to eliminate aches and pains, you should check out my RStoration program.
