The Injury Bug (Part 2)

Back to the show…
The second kind of injury is “Chronic.”
Shoulders always stiff and sore?
Elbow tender to the touch?
Dull aches in the low back when resting?
 
These are examples of chronic, or ‘overuse,’ injuries – they are characterized by pain that develops over time. They are BY FAR the most common that we see at the box. You may not remember a specific thing you did to cause the pain, probably because there wasn’t a singular event. These are referred to as overuse injuries because they’re a result of continually putting your body into a poor position that leads to said injury – you are using your body in the wrong way…yes, I am aware of how that sounds. Your body can only compensate for poor movement patterns for a finite amount of time before it breaks down. Some get away with it for a long while, others…not so much.
Treating chronic injuries also depends on different factors, but they are generally healed with a combination of focused mobility work and sound movement patterns. I cannot stress this enough – you MUST strive to always put your body in the best position possible for whatever you are doing. This means no dead-lifting with rounded backs, no squatting with knees caving in, and no push-ups with elbows flared way out to the side.

(If you think you have “tennis elbow” or “golf elbow” but don’t play either, then I guarantee you are missing lots of shoulder mobility. Got a case of “runner’s knee” even though you rarely run more than a mile or two a week? Chances are something in the hip area needs to be worked on.)
How to avoid chronic injuries? Same way you ‘treat’ them: a healthy dose of focused mobility work and careful execution of good, sound technique.
I want to close this series by giving you all some advice: if you are injured, barring any freak accidents or inability to walk at all, you should be in the gym improving something. Everything we do here can be modified…or you don’t even have to do the WOD. Most of the time, the best thing you can do to get back to full speed is to stay moving. Circulating blood flow in and around an injured area only helps to speed up the healing and recovery process. So please, don’t use your jammed pinky as a reason to skip coming in. If this guy can’t find an excuse, then none of you should be able to either…”Ask More of Yourself”