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JAMIE 0:00
Have you ever struggled with knowing whether you have pain or an injury? I think most of us have, you know, we’ve suffered and that pain just doesn’t quite feel right. But we don’t know if we’re really injured because they’re still doing most of the things that we want to do. So this episode isn’t meant to replace a medical practitioner’s advice, but what it can do is tell you, Oh, maybe I need to go see that medical practitioner, right? So stay tuned to the end to get some free resources, so that you can determine if your pain is just pain, or maybe is it an injury that you need to do something about?
INTRODUCTION 0:32
Welcome to the Fit, and healthy Denver podcast where we discuss all things revolving around health, fitness and wellness in the amazing state of Colorado so you can get behind the scenes information from industry insiders, special events, and more. Coming up is our host, physical therapist and strength coach, Dr. Jamie Beauvais. And here we go.
JAMIE 0:57
Welcome, everybody. Today’s episode is about 13 ways to tell the difference between pain and injury. We see this a lot. We’re you know, we’re working with somebody in the clinic. And you know, they’ve had pain for three years. And we say, why didn’t you do anything about it? They’re like, well, I just had pain, I didn’t think it was an injury. And I know that sounds a little crazy if you haven’t had pain that long. But if you have been in that position, it’s easy to fall into that trap. And then another thing that happens is people kind of wear pain as a badge of honor, especially in sports and athletics, or, you know, we work with a lot of CrossFitters, for instance. And you know, in some gyms, there is kind of this attitude of no pain, no gain, and pain is part of the process. And especially with athletics, weightlifting, things like that. Pain should not be worn as a badge of honor. It’s kind of the equivalent of a marathoner taking around a beer gut, and bragging about that he’s winning his races. Yeah, that’s kind of interesting, you know, and, yeah, I have a beer guy, and I’m so good, I can still win these races, but you probably performed better without that beer. Same thing goes with pain, get rid of that pain, you’re going to perform that much better. And so it becomes crucial to know the difference between pain and injury, because one thing that can happen is, if it is a light injury, that could be fixed very quickly, the longer you go, the harder it becomes to fix and the longer it takes to fix. So this very simple injury causes compensation. And it causes a lot of other things that prolong the process. And I would, I would venture to guess that we actually ended up treating more of the problems from the compensations and we do the original injuries, just because those compensations cause a lot of problems. And the brain is smart, it finds ways to move so that you’re not in pain. You know, the brain is like this overprotective mother and it finds ways to force you into movements that don’t cause pain. So, without further ado, let’s get into the discussion of 13 ways to tell the difference between pain and injury. Okay, so number one, how intense is the pain? Now, before we go too deep into this pain isn’t a great gauge of injury. Or if you don’t have an injury, you can have a lot of pain and limitations and not have an injury, they’re not necessarily equivalent. You can also have an injury and have very low level pain. But if the intensity of that pain came on suddenly, or if that pain is increasing over time, that it’s something you want to watch and consider, you know, is it form? Is it technique? Do I need to change these things? Or is it an injury? So if the pain is higher than six out of 10, and it’s been around for very long, though, either you need to modify what you’re doing very quickly, or it’s very likely you have an injury, that’s a high level of pain to have no injury, so maybe an injury. Number two, is it getting better? So the key here is to be honest with yourself? Is it really getting better? Or are you just wishfully thinking it’s getting better? If that pain is getting better than the main thing to consider is just your timeframes. If you have something you need to get ready for quickly, then you may need to, you may need help to speed up the process. So if pain is not getting better, then you may need to look into a physical therapist, a chiropractor, massage therapists, acupuncturist, whoever your practitioner of choices to help get you better. So the other thing is the speed right? Are you getting better at the speed you need? Or have you gotten better and then has it plateaued? So that you know if he’s gotten better and then it’s plateaued but you’re still having problems? Probably an injury there that has not been fully recovered. So just be careful that during this process, you’re not increasing your training too quickly, and put in the work to get better. Number three, how long have you had this pain? And so by seven days, after the pain has started, the pain should be decreasing. If it’s not, then it is a possible sign that you may have an injury. At 14 days, if it’s still hurting or limiting your activity, then you likely have an injury. Now, it may not be severe, but you likely have an injury. So you don’t necessarily have to stop training or anything like that. But you do probably need to get this assessed if you’ve had 14 days of pain that is not getting better.
JAMIE 5:29
Number four, what does it feel like soreness to the touch can just be delayed onset muscle soreness after a hard workout that’s totally normal or after a new workout. But sharp pinching electrical sensations. Those are often signs of an injury and should be avoided when possible. And there are signs that there’s something more than just workout soreness going on. Number five, are you able to move the way you want to move, not being able to move the way you want could be because of tight muscles, it could be due to weakness, it could be motor control, which is kind of a fancy way of saying coordination. However, if you’re not able to do a movement, and something happens that is forcing you not to be able to do that movement, causing pain, where you just can’t completely control it, there may be an injury there. So you need to avoid that, that movement and get yourself checked out. Try to regain those movements as soon as possible. Number six, have you ever felt this type of pain before, if you have this type of pain before then likely, you know if you’re injured or not, you’ve experienced it before you probably know your recovery times. And you may not need to be worried just yet. Now, if you’ve never had this type of pain before, most injured athletes describe their injuries as a pain I’ve never felt before. So if you have something that’s like, I have never experienced this before, you know, if you’re older than 1314, you’ve probably experienced a lot of different types of pains to know if it is an injury or not. If you’re kind of you know, above 25, and you’re in your 30s. And you’re like Wow, I’ve never felt this probably a good chance that it’s an injury, maybe not severe, but probably something you may need to get checked out, especially if it’s been kind of lingering for more than seven days or so. Number seven, does it hurt on one side or both sides. If it hurts on both sides, then it may just be some sort of delayed onset muscle soreness, some tightness, things like that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not an injury. But it also if you’re feeling it on both sides, it’s probably more due to what you’re doing: a hard new workout, a stretch, you’re tight from work. So just consider some lower impact exercises that can improve that pain. Number eight, do you hurt your upper body and your lower body? So similar to question number seven, unless you have a reason to think both the upper body and lower body could be injured, then it’s probably just a hard new workout, a new movement. Lots of times we’ll hear this like moving for instance, as you’re lifting heavy couches and things like that. So gentle, lower impact exercises are good just to kind of get in some stretching, just to get that soreness out of there, yoga is great. Pilates, that type of thing is great for that as well. Number nine, doesn’t get better or worse with movement, exercise or training. So most injuries will not get better with movement, exercise or training. So if you do these light things, and it feels better, it’s likely it’s just some soreness a little, maybe a little pain from working too much. But if you do movement, exercise or training and it feels worse, it’s likely an injury. So you know, and especially if this has been going on for a while, it’s likely an injury. Number 10. Does it get worse with staying still? So many injuries, especially the back and the neck will actually get worse with prolonged sitting or standing still. So if your pain or limitations get worse with staying still, then it’s probably an injury and you probably need to get a look at number 11. Have you ever had this injury in this area before? So previous injury is the number one predictor of future injury. So if you’ve had an injury in the same body region before, then it is very possible that this time it could be an injury especially you know, kind of going up and down this list. If you have any of these other issues going on if that pain is going around if it’s severe if it’s sharp, pinching electrical, anything like that. Number 12. Have you had to modify more than three workouts or skip two or more workouts in a row. So I was taught this by a great Chiropractor Dr. Edward Cara down in Dallas. And it’s kind of his rule of thumb, but I’ve checked it out and it really works very, very well. So it’s kind of a measure of an injury. So if you’ve had to eat either stop two workouts or skip two workouts because of pain or you had to completely modify three workouts because of pain. You probably have an injury and it may not be severe, but you probably have some sort of injury that needs to get at least looked at number 13. Are you afraid to go to the doctor because you’re afraid they will tell you to stop training or working out? This one sounds kind of funny. But sometimes deep down you kind of know it’s an injury but you just don’t want it to be. So you don’t take the necessary steps because you don’t want to miss out on the things you love. And that’s totally understandable.
JAMIE 10:10
So you know, and sometimes also, you don’t want to rest or take a break from your workout. So you don’t go to somebody that you think will say that. That’s why, you know, we were known for working around the injury modifying helping you stay active in your workouts in your lifting in your sport. And there are always ways to do that. Not all medical practitioners do that, because the easy way is to tell you to rest, you can also get weaker when you rest. And that can cause other problems. Exercise, in my opinion, brings blood flow, it brings movement, it brings helpful exercises, stretches, movements that stretch the nerves, muscles, joints, tendons, everything in it as long as it’s done appropriately. So we encourage all of our athletes to keep moving, but they need to move in the right ways and in ways that don’t stress strain the injury. So if you are avoiding going to somebody because you’re afraid of skipping your work, or they will tell you to rest from your workouts, there’s a good chance you’re injured, and you probably know it deep down as well. So a word of caution on this. This isn’t meant to be the end all be all medical advice for everybody. There’s no way I could diagnose your injury or your pain from a podcast when I haven’t even talked to you. So don’t take this as Oh, Jamie said this on number seven, that means I’m not injured, I can go do whatever I want. These are just some ways this is meant to spur action. If you think you may have an injury, don’t give you an excuse to say, “Oh, I don’t have an injury, right?” So if you have any questions about this, just email me Jamie at kinetic chain denver.com and I’m more than happy to go over this. If you want a copy of everything that I just went over, plus five big bonus tips. We have a download for that on our website. And it’s actually a shoulder download because all these problems we find are the most common in shoulder and people have these problems with the shoulder more so than anything so you can go to our website, go under the pain help now button drop down on top and then click on shoulder pain you’ll find it right there. Alternatively you could go to kinetic chain denver.com backslash shoulder dash pain dot HTML. As always kinetic is misspelled k i n e t ik but I thought this could be helpful. If you have any questions please let me know. Otherwise, we will bring you more helpful information like this in the next episode. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Unknown Speaker 12:39
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