Pain reduction, endorphins, blood flow and healing, confidence to move, improved general health, and a couple of other reasons.
Exercise is super important for a plethora of reasons. What people usually don’t realize is that exercise can actually help you recover from injury faster than resting. Here are a few reasons why you should use exercise to get you back to the activities you love faster.
Circulation – When an injury happens, the injured area needs to recover. Recovery requires healing chemicals to come to the area in order to build back certain biological structures. Those chemicals have to get to the injured area, and that happens via blood flow. When we exercise, blood flow happens faster throughout the body, so general exercise will allow more of those healing chemicals to get to the location of injury faster, therefore allowing for faster healing and faster return to activity.
Pain Reduction – Exercise has a myriad of positive effects, and one of those is the release of what is called “endogenous opioids.” These are basically feel-good chemicals that reduce pain. Multiple studies show that they lead to anti-nociception, a fancy way of saying overall decreased pain levels. Put plainly: exercise decreases pain. This is why you tend to feel so good after (or even during) a hard workout! So whatever we can do to get in exercise while recovering from injury will lead to lower pain levels, therefore allowing a smoother and quicker return to the activities you love.
Confidence – One of the toughest parts about recovering from injury or having pain is that sometimes we are not sure what movements or activities would make the pain worse. We aren’t sure what will set us back further. Finding ways to still incorporate pain free or low pain exercise into our routines allows our subconscious to know that we are still functional in some way/shape/form. That confidence of knowing that we are still capable of exercising even though we are injured or painful in certain areas gives us the positive energy proven to be beneficial to help recover faster.
General Health – One of the strongest, most powerful benefits of exercise is improved overall health. This has been studied numerous times, and people that adhere to the exercise guidelines live longer healthier lives. The really smart people at the The US Department of Health and Human Services whose job it is to research this stuff recommend that adults do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity, or at least 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity per week. In addition, they recommend strength training at moderate intensity or more at least 2 times per week. When researchers look at people who follow these guidelines, they’re almost always healthier and better off. Recently a study published in July 2022 found that those who adhere to these activities guidelines have significantly lower all-cause (and cause specific) mortality. Basically those who are active enough live longer lives. Plain and simple.
At KinetikChain, we try not to let an injury or limitation get in the way of your drive to be healthy and live a longer, higher quality of life.
Continuing to exercise while injured is not only allowed, but encouraged for the four reasons above among others. Of course the devil is in the details so if you are wondering how you might be able to maneuver your specific situation and continue exercising? Click the box below and/or give us a call!
