Pain is not your problem

A wise man once said ‘pain is the last symptom to appear and the first to go away’. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learnt is that more often than not, pain is not the problem. Pain is a symptom of poor movement patterns causing irritation. Pain is what brings people in for treatment, pain doesn’t just come ‘out of nowhere’. There’s always a reason you are in pain.

Have a read of this and tell me if it sounds familiar:

You start a new training program → You make heaps of progress → You start to get sore all the time → You rest and start to feel better → You go back to training hard → It happens all over again.

The problem here is you haven’t accounted for WHY you are in pain. Once the pain goes away, through passive treatments like massage and rest, people perceive that their problem has gone away. Never addressing the deficient function is a surefire way to get frustrated and be perpetually injured. You need to address the underlying mobility and stability issues.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place to rest – if you’ve torn a muscle off the bone, then sure, rest and rehab. But if you have a perpetually sore (insert body part here) because of lifting weights or training, then I’d be willing to bet that it’s not something you need to rest from, rather it’s a movement pattern you need to address through corrective exercise so you can exercise correctly going forward.

Stop chasing your tail – pain is a symptom, not the cause. If you have been experiencing this cycle, the good news is that you can break it. We’re here to help you find and treat the cause of your pain.

Josh