Latest evidence in research for back and knee pain supports exercise therapy as the best form of intervention for pain, but why are there still so many people who are exercising but are still in pain?
“I’m so strong, but why do I still have pain?” Ever since I’ve started WLB, we have definitely been dealing with more “strength-related” pain than “sedentary lifestyles” related pain. It’s interesting the shift, but it’s also a more crucial time to talk about how moving right is key in pain-free performance.
Understanding Pain
Pain is our body’s natural alarm. This alarm often sounds when our body is under threat. This alarm is triggered when the body is trying to alert us and protect us from something. I see it as an indicator for change.
Here’s a simple example: You’ve been sitting for an hour, and you’re starting to feel some discomfort. You stand and do a little stretch and you instantly feel better. Such a slight change in our posture can already help us eliminate that pain. However, when we think of it with a longer term perspective, it can actually indicate that we need a better change strategy, one that allows us to sit for longer symptoms. For someone who is already active, it actually involves improving the way we utilise our time in the gym.
Moving STACKED = Moving Right
From a bio-mechanical view point, every joint in our body has a ‘load tolerance limit’, similar to how a shelf may collapse if you place something that’s too heavy for it withstand. It could snap in half, or it would wear out at the joint lines.
The beauty of the human body though, is how if load is distributed well, every single joint can support another, leading to a structure that works as one, perfectly. However, this doesn’t come intuitively for many and having persistent pain can really change things due to habits that are accumulated with pain. An example will be how after an ankle sprain, you may start limping and overtime change how you use your foot, knee, and really, the whole body.
That means that if we aren’t moving in a way that’s balanced or optimal, strength training can put too much load on certain joints in our body, leading to pain and degeneration.
While education & exercise may be the first line of treatment… The question really is… Are you moving right?
We use the term STACKED to describe human movement that is balanced, but we often hear our clients say they are here to learn how to move right. What that really means though, is to learn how to optimize human movement by using the joints the way they are designed, and what I’ve earlier referred to as the most optimal distribution of load. You can read more about STACKED in an earlier post here.
To learn more, join us at our upcoming low back and knee pain clinic that runs from January to March, for 8 weeks. We are also holding a Community Workshop that will cover a talk and a introductory class about Low Back & Knee on 4th January! Details to both events can be found on our Facebook Events page or you can go straight to sign up for either here.