Exercise Holiday: Allow your body to rest and recover!

We've all seen it. We've probably all done it! Yet we all seem to do it again and again, and when do we learn? What are we talking about? Appropriate rest!

Picture the scene: You haven't exercised much up to recently in your life, you find an activity that is to your liking. You start to take part in this activity more and more and you get better and better. You find you're making more friends and suddenly your physical, social and psychological well-being all start to feel better. You haven't felt this good in a very long time. Then one day, you're taking part in your chosen activity and a niggle sets in. You're aware of it but you hope "it'll go away" or "I'll run through it...". You decide to keep going and you've guessed it Injury!

You decide to rest for a few days, and then continue with your chosen activity, and it still isn't right! You end up getting frustrated and wondering whether this chosen activity was for you. All of your new friends that you have made doing this chosen activity have all got the best advice for you, because they had the exact same problem once too (!)

What do we suggest?

Relative rest, recovery and strengthening exercises!

Rest and recover!

There is no exact answer to this. How long you need to rest depends on what you have injured. A broken bone will need 6 - 12 weeks to heal then rehabilitation. An over active muscle may only need 1 - 2 weeks to stretch and be ready for action.

Irrespective of what activity you are taking part in, unless you have trained gradually and appropriately, you will be unconditioned to that activity. Perform too much too soon and you will have a high risk of injury. Return too soon from an injury and it becomes a chronic, recurring problem.

This is what we call the boom/bust cycle. Whereby we start an activity at a moderately high intensity, we find it difficult and rest for a long period, we try it again at an even higher level of intensity, and so on until an injury occurs!

Strengthening exercises! We cannot stress this aspect enough. More and more research and evidence is highlighting that many muscle, tendon and joint related problems are due to a fundamental lack of strength in a particular area.

By increasing our strength progressively and gradually, we

allow the tissues (muscles, tendons and bones) to gradually adapt and be therefore able to participate in our chosen activity. Evidence and research suggests this increase should be approximately 10 - 15% increase per week.

What can I do if I am injured?

You may not be able to take part in your favourite activity due to injury, but see this as a positive! See this as a chance to try another activity. Remember, you haven't necessarily liked the activity you recently discovered! Try swimming, try cycling, try running, try rock climbing. Go to the gym. By varying your activities, not only are you keeping yourself fit whilst you are injured, but you are preventing boredom and accommodation (where our body gets used to what we are doing). Not only that, you may discover another activity that you enjoy just as much as the one you're injured from. If you'd like further details on this, or any other physiotherapy related topic, then contact us and be sure to like and follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MikeStampPhysiotherapy/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel