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No Pain, No Gain. No Pain, GOOD GAIN. How to tell the difference.
This morning as the spring clouds began to roll in, threatening an early rain and snow storm, I donned my gear and jogged down the hill towards the main road. I am returning to running after a few months off, having given myself a labral tear in both hips, and pulled the hamstring in both thighs last year climbing Mt. Kenya. That had been one hell of a hard climb, and by the time we limped into our final camp eight days later I had been seriously lamed.
Bad pain.
The mountain was particularly difficult, and the hikes extremely long. I’d trained well, but even when you do, sometimes it isn’t enough.
Then I was sidelined overseas for a month with an infection, which further tightened everything up.
Bad pain.
So now I’m on the mend. I do 1.5 hours of PT daily, and it is fixing me fast. Movement heals. In fact, in many cases the more we rest, the worse we get. But…it depends. For example, we now know that if we sprain an ankle, the traditional RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) is now shown to do damage. We get well much faster if we move that sprained ankle.
In other words, the body really does know what it’s doing when it comes to healing. And when it’s getting pushed too far past the safety zone. Or…