“No Pain, No Gain” – How this mentality will leave you stuck with pain!

October 6, 2017

This week, I had the pleasure of working with one of our close family friends in the clinic.

I’m going to call her “Susie” in today’s email and blog. Here’s her quick story:

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Susie is a very active lady, even at roughly 70 years old.

She enjoys talking long walks with her husband, hiking, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing with the grandkids.

Not bad, huh?!

Unfortunately, Susie’s been struggling with some pain in her right hip and buttocks over the last year or so.

The pain comes and goes, but has gotten more consistent over the last couple months, and it’s now starting to limit some of her favorite activities.

And I hate to say this 4-letter word in October, but the SNOW is on its way, and Susie wants to be prepared for skiing and snowshoeing!

Susie tried some physical therapy treatments a couple months ago (at another clinic), and her pain relief was only temporary at best.

And on Thursday, she decided I’d nagged her enough that she’d let me try to help her with what we now refer to as her “pain in the butt.”

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While I was looking Susie over and finding quite a few tender muscles on her, she mentioned something that I hear quite a bit: “No pain, no gain.”

For a lot of people like Susie, especially those who are used to some aches and pains and who’ve worked hard their entire lives, this mentality is quite common.

You give them a couple helpful exercises, tell them to do them gently 1-2 times/day, then you check back with them and they’ve tripled it!

They often think along the lines of “If a little is good, a lot is better” even if “a lot” causes pain and “a little” doesn’t.

So this statement of Susie’s got me thinking about the “No pain, no gain” mentality…specifically how it works against these people in 95% of the situations.

I talk all about it in the video below (scroll down).

In the video, I also talk about another key point, which is how active people like Susie get caught in the trap of wanting to get rid of their pain but also wanting to stay active at the same time.

Another common statement in this group of folks is “move it or lose it”. I happen to agree with this one…

If Susie can’t stay active, she’s going  to lose strength and mobility rather quickly.

And then when she wants to be active again, it will hurt even more…

So what’s she supposed to do?

How can she have the best of both worlds and achieve pain relief in addition to keeping her active lifestyle?

I’ll give you a hint: “No pain, no gain” isn’t the answer!

I’ll tell you the answer in the video…

And with any luck, in 4-6 weeks, I’ll be able to tell you exactly how well Susie did, and how she’s ready for the snow to fly! (there’s that word again, sorry!)

Who knows, maybe she’ll even let me put her on video… pushing my luck now, aren’t I “Susie” 🙂

Here’s the full video: