This week’s blog is written by Kim Wilson, who is fascinated with pain science and low back pain. She asks this excellent question to all of us – is your body scared of movement?
Movement is necessary
Movement is necessary in life. Our bodies move in amazing and wonderful ways, we have capabilities that we are generally unaware of and can push ourselves to achieve (within reason) anything we want to do.
When I was younger ………
When we are children we learn to cartwheel, climb, sit with our legs behind our heads without thought about the consequences.
Our bodies are so very ‘plastic’ and bendy and our healing capabilities are remarkable.
So much younger than today……
As we get older things do change, our joints become not quite as bendy and our tissues don’t heal at quite the same rate.
But what changes more are our beliefs.
Our beliefs of what we CAN achieve and fear of any movement which is out of the norm.
We have past experiences which make us wiser, stopping us from putting our bodies into quite so many risky positions. We try and keep ourselves SAFER! Sensible?? Maybe…. but also maybe not.
Does this lack of movement make us safer or are our bodies just scared.
Scared of movement? Scared of the consequences? Of hurting, breaking or worse?
The more we avoid movements and positions then more we become limited and further away from achieving.
Do you ever run?
Take for example running. All 2 year olds run, they rarely walk.
We get older, up until about 10 running is still part of a daily activity – we did it to keep up, to run away or just have fun.
After about 10 we only run for sport. Some people stop about here others keep going with their chosen sporting activity.
But the longer we go without running then harder it becomes to do it again. Perhaps at some point you did run, but you were sore afterward……. your brain then tells you its probably not sensible to run again, you avoid it.
Muscle tone decreases, joints become less tolerant of the impact physically it becomes even harder mentally.
Then we see a specialist who tells us the joint is damaged, it’s degenerated and to avoid running…… yet another thing to reinforce the fear factor of running.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that we should do any activities without consideration of the risk. Its all about balance, but the old saying is true,
IF YOU DON’T USE IT, YOU LOSE IT
[We have written on the Use It Or Lose It Principle previously – see examples of how it applies to different tissues here.]
What to do?
I would like to encourage you to try something you want to do. It might be as simple as standing on one leg, riding a horse, walking on the beach or running a marathon.
Break it down in to manageable components and slowly increase your tolerance. Pace it! Strengthen, mobilise, glide and have confidence in your bodies ability.
Sometimes the idea of this is all too hard for you to process alone, the overwhelming beliefs of I CAN’T do that anymore takes control. However if you want to do it you can!
We can help you to understand why you have pain and hopefully change some of those avoidance beliefs and functional limitations. Break if down into achievable goals pacing the activity until you can do what you want to do.
- At Adelaide West Physio, we love helping people individually to come up with a plan of attack.
- We can help you break things down into manageable parts and create goals that are realistic.
- If you aren’t sure about how to go about it, let us help you! Call us and make a time for a free chat with one of the physios with no obligation.
- Other services that we offer might be helpful too – individual pilates, group pilates, our small group training PhysioStrong classes and our BestBalance classes. We can definitely tailor something for what you need and what you want to achieve!
Don’t spend your life believing you CAN’T. Push yourself because we know that you CAN.
