You might not have ever exercised before in your life, you should still be treated like an athlete. Why? Because being inadequately conditioned may have got you into your injured state in the first place. Now, I don’t mean we’ll have you doing burpees and squat jumps etc. but as mentioned in a previous post, injuries result due to the inability of the body to sufficiently deal with force and this is something well trained individuals do very well.
We often question a patient’s 5th gear i.e. what can their body do when working its hardest. Let’s take the shoulder for example. If you can barely take your elbows past your ear, handle a heavy object with control etc. then in suggests your 5th gear may be you reaching over-head or for the printer behind you. A well conditioned shoulder however is more likely to have a 5th gear in the realm of 20-30 press ups or a pull up etc.
The point to make is, which shoulder do you think would respond best to stress? The latter, for sure. Now, by focusing first on pain relief and then by progressively improving bodily function and co-ordination we can improve confidence and reduce likelihood of injury. The motive of treatment should never to be to merely stretch and mobilise until it’s as flexible and supple as possible. It should be to reduce pain and improve function within that injured body part’s working environment so that what you do on a daily basis (especially you desk bound individuals) is your 1st or 2nd gear. Not your 5th
Progressively loading or challenging function is key to this