When we experience chronic pain in our bodies we often have virtually no idea what to do about it. It is almost as if the pain is some foreign invador that appeared out of nowhere. This is how I used to think and from my experience as a personal trainer, I would say that is absolutley the norm. With that in mind, there is a pretty simple idea I want you to be familiar with: deload and align.
Basically, to reduce and/or prevent chronic pain, muscles and joints need to be free from stress and pressure and they need to be moving in their correct, anatomical path. If you can achieve this, it’s at least half the battle.
DELOAD
Foam rolling, massage, and stretching are methods that we use to reduce stress and tension from muscles. When muscles stiffen up they cause discomfort at the muscle itself (think stiff neck) and/or at the joints that that they act on (think achy knees). When you foam roll, have a massage, or stretch you can coax the muscle into relaxing. This relieves the stiff, tight, pulling feeling of the muscle itself and can also free up the joint from extra pressure, bringing pain relief the joint itself. This is what I would call “deloading” in this context. This is also the reason I think everyone should be making regular use of a foam roller and why I am a big fan of visiting a good massage therapist regularly.
ALIGN
If you have successfully ‘deloaded’ the muscle and joint, you can now focus on alignment. Joints need to be aligned properly to move with the least amount of friction and to stack with the least amount of pressure. Alignment is usually best achived by doing some form of movement/strength training. Your muscles hold your body up, so they need appropriate strength and control for that task. This does not necessarily mean that you have to lift heavy weights. Simple body weight exercises or light bands can often do the trick. You do need to get muscles doing their job effectively though and in proper balance with one another and this requires some actual strength training. A physical therapist or a good personal trainer could help you with this.
CONCLUSION
For many, keeping this general principle in mind – deload and align – will go a long way to reducing chronic pain and injuries. If you are like many and have always sort of been surprised when something hurts, this is a good system to remember. At the very least, it can take some of the mystery away. Look at the alignment of the joint and feel the surrounding muscles, you can often see the problem if you know how to look.
DISCLAIMER
To be sure, this will not solve every problem and often you need a professional such as a physical therapist to help you evaluate and deal with nagging issues. If you have acute injuries, severe pain, or chronic pain that simply will not go away, get it checked out by a doctor. You never know what the underlying issue could be!
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