A common subject, how can we recover as possible from an injury or from intensive training sessions.
Scenario
“I’ve pulled a muscle / I have muscle pain from training, so I should probably just lie still and rest, right?” Sure, you could, but if you want aid your body to heal as quick as possible, so you can get back to normal; then sitting around is most likely slowing that down.
This blog post is not about external factors such as nutrition, and applies regardless of external supplements such as ice baths or fancy treatments available to elite athletes.
Basic Healing Principles
Some basic principles remain constant. The body has to heal itself, and we can influence some factors to enable the maximum effectiveness. This involves circulation in the body to the injured area, bringing nutrients and healing factors, and taking away damaged material and accumulated toxins.
This is where moving helps!
How and How Much
In essence this is actually relatively simple. Go slow, as slow as possible for delicate areas.
With our mind body connection, and moving slowly we are able to by ourselves gain a huge amount of information about our injuries:
- By moving slowly we reduce the load on our injured areas – less acceleration
- We reduce risk of exacerbating the injury, and understand the limits
- By moving very slowly across the available range, and across multiple angles, we can feel precisely which areas are dysfunctional
- By gradually feeling out, we can understand better which angles of movement are sensitive, and avoid those when just generally moving around
- Once the injured area is precisely identified, that can be better targeted e.g. with massage, stretching, ice packs
- Allows gradual targeted increase of loading, re-programming the nerves in the injured area to build back to a normal full load
These are general points which apply to all kinds of injuries. Even with skeletal injuries, there is typically some associated soft tissue injury to which this will apply. Skeletal injuries also need circulation to heal!
Even if there is a requirement for treatment by a doctor/therapist, by having this insight from our mind body connection, will enable more precise feedback and infomaton to be given to them. They will then be be able to provide more effective treatment.
Conclusion
We all have it within us to self-heal to an extent. Gently practise and enable yourself!
