Both Sides Of Fit
Ep. 26 "I'm injured now what?"
How to handle an injury in the gym, big or small. How to work around it, things to try to get it better, and when you should get some help.
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- Duration:
- 1h 10m
- Broadcast on:
- 09 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
Disclaimer. The ideas and views discussed on the show should be considered opinion and not individual medical advice. Though, Dr. Chen is board certified and licensed, every human is different and without individual assessment, concepts and ideas cannot be directly applied with the guarantee of success. Please consult your personal physician or fitness coach before making any changes. Thank you. Sorry. Just for reference, the dog is asleep on the floor, so if you're any are brewing or anything, please let me know. But oh, I'm sure I'll make a weird face if that happens, but he's asleep. He's asleep in the sunlight. So we're tough. He's he's been not banned from the the office for a while. So we'll see what happens. Do you just remember what sunlight is? Yeah, he looks so comfortable right now. I actually kind of envy him. He's even it's a thing. But either way, welcome back to both sides of fit. I'm Jasmine and I'm Dr. Tim and I have Starbucks. We are all set. We're firing all cylinders today. So speaking of today's topic is going to be I'm injured. So what now? Let me just start off by saying stop what you're doing. Let's just start there. If you've done something to the point you've hurt yourself, stop and assess. That's that's usually my first thing to do. Well, especially if you're like in mid set, like I had an old kickbox and coach of mine, he would say, are are you sore? Are you hurt? Or are you injured? Like those are different things, but we're going to we're going to go with injured. You can definitely have that thing where you you wake up the next morning and you're like, this is more than sore. Like something's something's not right here. But if you're like in the middle of something and something pops or snaps or twinges really bad or like just set it down. Put that 80 to 90 pound weight down, please. Gently. Don't throw shit around. That's just having having and been guilty myself. Like you do not have to finish the workout. Like if you're being paid, if that kind of thing, if if you're in a competition, get your money. Yeah, if you're competing, you can you can weigh that but also kind of try to weigh the severity. Like if you feel something snap and your arm or your leg looks different, like you're done. That's. Yeah, I mean, there is the difference of snapping and it just, you know, just popped a joint, not popped out but just, you know, cracked your knuckles a little bit. That's that's a little different. We do understand the difference. The different kinds of snaps and pops. This is like, and well, I can say like if you tear a muscle off the bone, it it doesn't snap or pop. It sounds like Velcro. That's just. That's a sound I didn't need in my brain. That's that's what it sounds like. I'll tell you, having heard it more than once, but I'm going to go ahead and knock on wood. I am lucky enough to have never torn a muscle or broken a bone in my 30 years of life. So let's let me let me say this. Both of us are well past the age of 30. So we understand that at 25, you started to feel that ache if you got a new pillow and you slept on it wrong. We understand. Like I bet you looked looked at something wrong and your hip pops. We kind of experienced that or like I have. Actually, in fact, I'm pretty sure like half the time when we would be in mid session, I would pop some way you'd be like, what was that? It'd be like my knee, my wrist, my ankle. You get pretty good doing this over the years of figuring out where pops are coming from that not always with you, but sometimes they're just outrageously loud for no goddamn reason. Like knee and hip and shoulder and ankle kind of make different noises, but unless you're human humans vary. But if you have done something to the point of injury and you have stopped, maybe you should maybe assess a what you're doing and then follow steps that Tim's going to tell us about because clearly I'm not the expert on this one. This is was funny. This was kind of a last minute topic change and I was like, I don't need lead time to do this. Like this is this is literally what I do. So like half the time, like if I don't remember what the topic is, I pull it on my ass and we just go with it. If you ever want to know how we could like until somebody starts actually suggesting topics, I might just be randomly asked pulling something. So y'all can we follow us on Instagram, throw it in our DMS or email us if you have something specific you want to talk about. Cool. We have a list. We just don't always know what we're going to take from that list until we get there. Yeah, sometimes it's like an hour decision before like I used to do a calendar. Now it's like it's a little more fun to do. It's fun. It's a it's a game time decision. But yes, I mean, and definitely the first thing to consider in this is like what is the what is your severity of that like I can't walk like well, okay, then you should probably like get checked out like that's one of the one of the main criteria that they use to determine if somebody needs an x-ray is like you can't take a step like go get that looked at like. Yeah, please, please and or thank you because the thing is what we don't it'll cost less just in general it will cost less if you schedule an appointment to go get seen about something then you turning up in the ER. If you didn't already assess that that was the case, I'm just telling you now, like the difference between scheduling to go get an appointment with your, you know, general, you know, the your regular doctor versus like running in, that could be the difference of a $20 copay to a $600 medical bill. Just throwing that out there. Absolutely. And that's that's the thing. I mean, in a cute injury, again, you you have something that's really swollen or you've got bruising or, you know, you can't move a part of your body that you used to be able to move or something's bending where it shouldn't be or that kind of stuff. Like that's, you know, if you suddenly have an extra elbow, like in the middle of your arm, that's those aren't things to wait on. If you if you wait because you've developed an extra elbow, please, damn because I just want to know what what went through your mind in that moment. Like, ah, it's just now I got three over over a couple hundred thousand patients and clients. I can tell you what goes through people's minds. And it's always the same thing. I thought it was going to get better on its own. Which for some stuff is true. You pulled a muscle in your back. You you strained a hammy, whatever your yeah, that. But a lot of this has to do with, you know, what was your onset something that just and I'm I got a few soap boxes. I'm going to get on here because I've definitely seen people get kind of done wrong by the medical system when they're injured. And so there are things you shouldn't, in my opinion, again, we have disclaimers. Shouldn't shouldn't shouldn't do. Um, if you had something happen during the workout, like you you slipped or you twisted your knee funny or, you know, again, all those things we talked about, there's a big noise or suddenly a limb gave out or you were doing deadlifts and you're back twinged and now you have pain shooting down your leg. Like it said, like that's that's an acute injury. And I say I've got you got a nagging thing in your elbow that's been there for six weeks. And it's not getting better and it's getting a little worse and you really haven't changed what you're doing. Um, that's less of an emergency. And this really comes down to, you know, dude, I always recommend people get into physical therapy. I know people have different recommendations and thoughts about PT, but as a PT, I think if you get a good one, you're, you're honestly going to do better than you would do with recommendations from like your, your family doctor. And I, I think family doctors are awesome. They have to know a million things about a million different things. They, they have to make sure that like, do you have a tummy ache or do you have an appendix? It's about to blow. Yeah. I mean, or, you know, are you feeling this way? Are you tired? Cause you're not sleeping well, or do you have an autoimmune condition, that kind of stuff? But for, for musculoskeletal stuff, like that's not, that's not the way to go. I always recommend people get a PT evaluation. If you ask your doctor for one, I think it's pretty rare that they say no, like PT is a pretty low cost thing in the medical system. And if you get checked out by a PT and they say you're okay, then, you know, unless they suck, which most of them don't suck to that degree, you're probably, you're probably okay. There's, there's someone graduates at the bottom of the class everywhere, but they maybe just don't test well to be fair. That's true. There's some of us out there that just don't test well, but we're fairly smart. I'm gonna put myself in that category. There's some, there's some test anxiety that, that plays into that for sure. But a lot of times, and I, I've seen this a million times too, like people go see their primary doctor, the first thing they're going to do, they're going to take an x-ray, they're going to maybe try to do an MRI, they're going to throw a bunch of, you know, anti-inflammatory or pain medications at people, and then they're going to refer them to an orthopedic doctor. And that's not always the greatest thing, depending on what happened. Again, you blew your knee out, maybe that's reasonable. But if you're, you know, I woke up with a, a crick in my neck, you, you don't need an MRI, because, or if you have something that has, you know, it's not severe, it's not debilitating, and it's been there for a while, it didn't just show up suddenly, nothing fell on you, et cetera. Like, give that a try to do something conservatively, because what a lot of times I see is people, they're going to run and get an image, an MRI, they're going to say you have arthritis, you have a bulge disc, you have nine other things, it's always a thyroid problem, what do you talk about? Or, or a thyroid problem? It's always a thyroid. It, uh, and that's really, that's the issue, is that you're going to find a lot of things, x-rays are really good, MRIs are really good, the technology that they use to take those images are fantastic, and if somebody's over like the age of 20, you're going to find something, and they're going to say, oh, well, you have a little bit of this here, and like, that's the problem, and that, that gets in people's head. That's because we all grew up in the parkour, it's like parkour, we all thought we could do it. So, I guess, you know, even if it is a severe injury, easy to say, hard to do, but my advice is don't freak out, don't try to throw 27 different things at it, like you should, if it's bad, get it looked at, but you know, you don't have to throw the kitchen sink at it day one. I will say the, I was going to say this, this is kind of where you kind of have to refer a little bit to like, we talked about like resting, actually resting to see if maybe that's all you have to do, okay, because what, I mean, what might be a severe pain right now can also be just you overworked it and you just need to take a couple of days off of it, okay, and I don't say try that first, I was thinking about saying that, but it's like, there's some things that maybe that's, that's all it really was. We all make mistakes sometimes, I will say that front though, but I mean, you can be well past the point of sore, you can have overworked something, you can have strained a muscle, you can have aggravated a joint that maybe does have some arthritis in it, you could, you know, you could have inflamed a tendon and a lot of times that stuff doesn't require a lot of outside intervention, like you don't have to go pump yourself full of pain meds, you don't have to, you know, get sent to an orthopedic doctor who unfortunately has five minutes to talk to you, looks at the MRI and suggests well, surgery, because, I mean, this again, this is a soapbox, but the amount of people I've seen that got an MRI of a body part and they said, I see this, and they have very good radiologists and doctors reading those reports and they're like, you have a bulge disc, that's your problem, you have a rotator cuff tear, you have a meniscus tear, your knee hurts, and you have a meniscus tear that I see here, therefore that's your problem. And it's just not always the problem, like again, if you didn't have an acute injury, and I talk people down on this constantly through just like, well, your meniscus is torn on the left side of your knee, and your pain's all on the right side of your knee, so it's possible that the pain just jumped over, but no, it's like, it's, and then again, I'm going to recommend physical therapy here again, just to even get checked out if people are like, I don't want to go to PT, it's one step above or one step below the dentist, depending on your mileage, but they get to spend a lot more time with people, I will say, then like a regular family doctor, again, who are awesome at making sure you're not dying, and then a hundred other illnesses that I'm not qualified to treat, but their musculoskeletal examination skills are not always very good, and a lot of times they say, well, it's this, and unfortunately, a lot of times their recommendation is, well, you should just stop doing that, like, well, well, shit, you're 40, why are you running? Why are you squatting? Yeah, why are you running? Why are we, as a person that was melanin blessed, why are we running? Where are we running from? Okay, have you ever seen that like that? I'm not touching that. You don't have to, but there's literally a thing, and you could look it up, it's always like, if you see, as somebody of color, if you see somebody running, we all start running, because we don't know what we're running from, but we need to run. Was that like, is this Cedric, or for Bernie Mac, somebody said that? Yeah. There's so many, like, things that like, confirm, like, if we see one person running, we run, because you don't know what you're running from, you don't know what's back there, and you don't want no smoke, this is why we really would survive a actual, like, horror film, because, guess what? I don't fuck with that. I don't. We don't fuck with that. Be the smart person in the horror film. Yes, please. And again, there's a lot of layers to this topic. It's kind of broad, and we're kind of taking it piece by piece, but that's why, you know, we're spending time on these pieces, like, depending on where you find yourself in the levels of the injured situation. Like, yeah, if you, that's the other thing. If it's not an acute injury, if it's something that I just woke up, and it was bugging me, I mean, I've also heard that people come in, and I'm talking to them, like, what happened to your neck, or your shoulder, or your knee, they're like, I don't know, I think I slept on it wrong. Like, okay, and it was just kind of there, and it just kind of started slowly, and now it's hurting more, and it's been six months now, and I'm like, okay, and I've stopped working out, and I stopped doing this, and I put on my jacket with my left hand now, and you're six months deep on this thing, and they're like, oh, again, get an MRI, and they're like, oh, you have this. I'm like, you have a partial tear in your rotator cuff, and I'm like, cool. But you had that before. Nothing happened. That was there, and this has been going on for six months, and now it's gotten to the point where you want to do something about it. I'm going to speak to a specific subset of people right now. Is it you, kind of, it might be, because I am like this, you know, who's in the countergory of people? My husband, if you can afford to take off time to go to the doctor, if you need to talk to, I mean, the thing is, there are women, so I will say, if you need to tell your partner to schedule for you, you do it. But I literally, like, was it, you don't want to, and my husband's injury was work-related. It's like, if you don't want to get to the point where you have to take time off work, do something about it. Literally, I literally was, he had, he injured himself to the point where he couldn't lift his arms past his shoulders, and I'm like, I'm going to tell Timmy that you fucked up. I was like, I'm going to go tell Tim, you fucked up. That's the problem. Like, again, a lot of people, like, I thought it was going to get better. I'm like, okay, and my answer to that usually is a lot of times it does, and we're going to talk about that too. Like, a lot of times you tweak something, you strain something, like, like, oh, I don't have to go, go talk to an orthopedic surgeon, and maybe you don't want to, because the other part of that is, if you end up on the doorstep of the orthopedic surgeon, they're going to assume that you went through the proper channels to get there, and if you skipped a bunch of steps, and now you're showing up on that surgeon's door, they don't have a lot of time to get the whole story from you, they're going to make the assumption that you've tried a bunch of things that maybe you haven't. I'm just going to stop you before we go too much further for two reasons. One, and I know we talked about the subcategory of men that do this. There's also a category of women that don't get believed when you're in pain. It has happened to me. Like, it's fucking frustrating that like, and maybe I'm talking to men still advocate for, or just advocate for your partner to, if they are injured to go, and if you don't have time, and you're the person that doesn't want to go, tell your partner so that they'll talk to your partners if you are injured. Maybe that's overall what we need to say, because there's been times that you go to the doctor, and it's like, you're either, you're kind of pushed off. And like I said, if you know you heard, I can get loud about it. Like just, I'm sorry, like literally when you were talking, you're like, oh, you've gone through the proper steps. There are sometimes you have to skip steps. There's been definitely times that I've skipped steps because I went to a clinic or what have you, and I'm like, hey, I have lost feeling in my shoulder or something. I don't remember the specific injury. I'm just throwing that out there. And they'll be like, oh, just wait it out. You're fine. I'm just going to give you a little bit of ibuprofen, the clinical strong stuff and you're good. Like that's what happened to me when I got when I got pneumonia. Literally, I went to the doctor three times in a week saying, I can't sit up. I can't lay down. It just hurts the breathe. And I'm coughing up blood. And they're like, Oh, you just got bronchitis. And like that, that could have been a deadly situation because I was getting pushed off. So and in today's age, to die of pneumonia, that's fucked. I'm just saying definitely and still happen, but still. No, it does. But again, yeah, I'm definitely coming at it from the side of people getting over treated in the medical system. People definitely get under treated in the medical system. I'm just saying we see you people that have to advocate for yourselves. Oh, yeah. And that's, no, it's okay. I mean, I stole your soapbox real quick. There's a lot of there's a lot of study data on that that, you know, women, especially people of color, that kind of thing that they don't get believed by medical professionals or that their pain is minimized or, you know, kind of played off and it's if they're they're overreacting or, you know, being hysterical women. And then that's all bullshit. Like, I mean, but the data is out there that that happens. So they're definitely, yeah, if you are in a lot of pain. Sorry, I'm sorry, I keep interrupting you. It's just, it's just like thinking about it's like, Oh, it's like the fact that like women are like women or women of color are also like told that they have better pain receptors than men and they don't feel pain as much. It's it's something that's still used in the medical field and it's fucked. It's also not true. It's no, it's not at all. So I'm sorry, I literally, I didn't even think we were going to go this way. I wasn't even, but it's like, it's both sides. Talking about pain, talking about pain, it's it's it's it's go get yourself assessed and then make sure if you happen to be a partner of somebody that needs needs somebody to like sit there and be like, no, this person hasn't gotten out of bed because they can't put weight on their ankle or to have to sit there and convince them like it sucks on either way. It sucks. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Sorry. I totally told the rains on that one. Well, I think that's a that's a good point is like, that goes both ways, like pain, unfortunately, is going to go deep on what they call pain science right here. Like it's not always a good predictor of injury because people can have a minor injury and a ton of pain. But as a medical professional, you can't assume that. Like if you're going to say, you know, somebody's pain is, you know, pain's affected by emotion and mood and and sleep and stress and diet and a thousand other things, you can have the same MRI that someone else has and have 10 times the amount of pain because people feel pain differently. But until you've and speaking to the medical professionals, I doubt we have a whole lot of them listening, but you never know, but but but from the perspective of the consumer, they should not people should not be assuming that that's why you hurt for unless they have adequately ruled out that there is something seriously wrong with you. So coming at it, other side, as the consumer, if you have a two out of 10 kind of achy pain in your shoulder, that is like, it's it's sore after I bench, and then it goes away. And I don't really warm up or stretch or do 10 other things. And, and I, you know, I keep trying to lift the same weight, even though my shoulders not getting better, like, do you need to go get an MRI? Probably not. But you just need to get in the massage chair and let that like relax a little bit. Just throw that out there. You need to get you need to get that figured out before it gets worse. But that's so if we kind of segue into that, like this is like the sub acute injury, like you don't have what they call a mechanism, something didn't happen. But you potentially have movements or exercises or things that you do that consistently irritate this part of your body. And it's, you know, that's a case to get it checked out, because a lot of times there's something you can do. But if you did have a tweak or a strain, and again, we're taking this at at kind of that level. And if you've never been injured, that's hard to to judge. But again, it's like, it's not like you can't stand up or you can't walk or, you know, your arms hanging limply at your side. Like that's that's serious shit. Go to the yard. Please, thank you. But I got a, you know, you got a twinge and you're like, oh, shouldn't have done that. And that's kind of the, if you're not in a place to go to the doctor right away, there's, you know, you self assess that you need to let it chill. Definitely don't try to grab the same weight you were just doing if something like that happened. Like, I mean, I'm sorry. I've literally thought about something like this has happened twice where I've popped moved and popped something and immediately freak out. Like, so one time I texted Tim because I was like, I stood up too fast and popped my big and now I can't stand up straight. But that also happened once we, like, this is how stupidly injured I can get as I literally stood up from my couch and felt something pop. And I literally was in so much pain, I couldn't walk up my stairs. I remember that. I was like, I don't know what the fuck I just did. But it sucks. My husband's like, how are you in this much pain and like an immediate, I was like, I don't know. And it literally wasn't until I went upstairs, like lay down for a second, then popped my hip again. And it immediately went away. It was like a phantom pain. It was the dumbest thing. Welcome to your 30s. Well, and not everybody has a has an on call PT. So that you said that I send random gifts to all the time. Yeah. Yeah, that that too. But, but yeah, if you, I mean, the probably the most common kind of this is, you know, you, you tweaked your back or you pulled your back or somebody's like, I threw out my back. I slipped a disc. Don't say that that doesn't happen. But this just don't slip there. They're very firmly anchored in place. But but the like, okay, let it cool down a little bit. Chill out. You're probably done. Maybe just stretch out a little bit if you tolerate it. See what that does for it. But you're probably going to go home and ice or heat or typically if something's acutely swelling, that kind of thing, you want to throw some ice on it. But, you know, just see what you can do with it, honestly. And that's not like, Oh, I'm going to see if I can go home and bang out some pushups. Like does does the joint move the way it used to? If it's the shoulder, can you still raise it up over your head? What does that feel like? If you do it slowly a few times, does it get better? Or does it get worse? Or can you not do it anymore? And I know this is like, this is also like under the like, if you can afford it, like, honestly, if you start, not even like, I think this is just a good general thing to do. If you can get first aid certified, like, this is a random thing that I like, I think about like all the time is if you they teach you these things to like, no, like, if you know, you're not going to have a lot of money to go to the doctor and all that, it helps to like, take these classes. Because first of all, you can get certain jobs with with that, which is great if your first aid certified. But also, they teach you like, Oh, do you know how to assess if some things broken or not? Like, not necessarily medical. You're not a doctor. That's not that's not how it works. But like, if you like, Oh, was it there's been times like my husband, my husband or my son or somebody like, smashes their hand. I'm like, can you move it? What kind of movement can you do? Okay, it's not that serious soon or, um, it's just good general knowledge for I think everybody should probably do do that. But I'm just saying like, those are the types of classes you can take that take like, maybe it's a six hour class on a Saturday, like, it's not going to give you all the medical training of Tim or a doctor or anything like that. But it's like, it's a good basics to know how to like kind of assess pain or a problem or trauma. And obviously know how to do, you know, you know, you know, assess somebody's having a stroke or something like that. They give you like a little very, very, very basic thing of knowledge of that. Right. And that's, I mean, that that's the idea. I mean, it's it will give you kind of structured knowledge of what all what I'm kind of going to take you through here. It's definitely not to the extent that you would get in that training, but do not go around saying that you're a doctor. That's just that's all if somebody like on the plane says, you're not it, please don't raise your hand. Don't raise your hand. You just you just know how to put a tourniquet on. That's it. Which is kind of fun, actually. Yeah. But again, I'll take you through the the the poor man's or poor person's PT exam. I mean, a lot of times it's pretty simple. We're going to usually talk to people quite a bit about, you know, how long's it been going on? Where does it hurt? How much does it hurt? What sort of stuff bugs it? What sort of stuff makes it feels better? You know, is it changing? Does it happen at certain times of the day? Like, is there numbness and tingling? Like that's, that's a bit like a pain that starts in one place and shoots to another place like down your down your arm or down your leg? I mean, that's kind of that stuff to to pay attention to as far as because a lot of times, these are the people that show up six months later, and they're like, I don't even remember what it was like when it started. It's it's fucking awful now, but I'm like, but it really wasn't that bad in the beginning. And then like, okay, so it's gonna get worse before it gets better. A case to get, get checked out if if you're not getting better after a certain point. I would say if that certain point is like a week or two, and you've backed off on what you're doing, and you don't feel like it's getting any better, then yeah, get, get looked at sooner than later, because I usually will tell people, you know, how long is this going to take to get better? And there's some variants there, but it's going to take as long as it's been going on is usually what I tell people, because that's a pretty safe bet. If it's been hurting for six months, it might take six months to go away fully. It might not, but you know, wouldn't you rather have that be two weeks? Hopefully. I get it. I usually will just keep turning around and just keep and see this thing is I'm one of those people that will just keep doing the same shit or while injured. I am part of the part of the problem. I know this. I called myself out. And that's the other thing. Like, if your injury is not severe, like you wake up the next morning and you're like, oh, that's, it's not gone, but it's better. You know, a lot of times, you know, if you injure something the next morning, it may not hurt as severely, but it just feels real stiff. But yeah, you want to see, can I, can I move? Elbow is a good example because it's a simple joint. It's a hinge. Can I bend and straighten my elbow all the way? Can I put force through my elbow? Can I, you know, use my biceps and my triceps and it's not incredibly painful and there's actually strength in those muscles. And then just, you know, poke the area where it hurts. Sometimes if you, yep, if you poke it and it doesn't hurt, there's a chance that that pain's possibly coming from somewhere else. I mean, I've had lots of people convince that, yeah, I've just pained down the side of my arm and they're digging around in there with a lacrosse ball and I was like, yeah, yeah, does that help? Like, no, does it feel like, like, do you, like, do you feel the pain when you do that? Like, no, I'm like, well, hey, why do you keep doing it? But like, I don't know, I, I thought it might help, but that's, you know, that's a pain that's maybe coming from somewhere else. Maybe that pain in your arm is coming from your neck. And again, if it's just really hard for you, not everybody has medical knowledge, but if you can't reasonably confidently say what you think happened, you should probably get checked out, especially if it's not getting better. That's the big one. It's like, it's like, was it the, those are like, obviously, it's for the good doctor, but it's like, oh, it's like, oh, did you know your lower back pain or caused by your feet? Like, it's kind of, I'm not, I'm not saying that that's what's causing it. I'm just saying that those commercials happen way too often. Well, sometimes it sometimes you can have low back pain caused by your feet. Sometimes you can have foot pain caused by your back. Like, bodies are weird, but I mean, there's sometimes that is the case. Like, there's when you're, especially when you're working out and you're using your whole body as, as it was intended as a machine, as a unit to do full body movements. Like, stuff can happen and stiffness or weakness or parts of the body. Yeah. Stuff that parts of the body that don't move as they ought to for whatever it is you're doing can put stress on other parts of the body. And sometimes, you know, you have to treat a different part of the body to get that sorted out. Most people aren't figuring that out on their own, unless they have a background or training, but there's also a lot of fuckery in there. They're like, Oh, your big toe is stiff. And that's why your, your shoulder hurts. And like, maybe, but probably not. Okay, Mr. Wick doctor, can you not? Like, no, no, no, but again, like, maybe you can correct me if it wrong. Is it true that, like, if you bring something on your foot, other than like, obviously your foot, like, let's say you break your big, big, you don't even get a cast. They just tie it together and just call it good. Yeah, if you well, that's actually one of the things I wanted to, you know, how do you need to go to the doctor? Do you need to get checked out? Can you wait this out? What is it? Like, is it a finger? Is it a toe? Is it your back? Like, those are dip like, yeah, you break a toe, they don't do shit. Like, they maybe tape them. You can't cast a toe. You can pretty much still get around on them. Maybe they'll put you in a boot, but probably not. Like, if it's a big toe, that's a little different, because the big toe does some stuff that the other toes don't do when you walk, right? No, exactly. But yeah, I mean, I will say a vast majority of people, like, what's the number one predictor if you're going to get injured is, have you been injured before? And did you take care of it? Like, the amount of people that I've had that come in with knee pain or hip pain or back pain that you can, you know, I started having people move and you're like, oh, well, you're, you put all your weight on this leg when you squat and they don't know they're doing that or this leg is like strong and this leg is not strong. And people just, if you're only doing like two-legged squats, you might not fire. You're doing leg press or things like that. You might not notice that there's a big strength difference. And you chase it back to an ankle sprain from 10 years ago. So they just like didn't put weight on that leg and it got kind of weak in it. And the brain that they got when they fell off of us. I wasn't speaking specifically about you. I saw you. Well, do you have issues on that side? You're going to hate this, but I'm not anymore because I went to the chiropractor. But yeah, no, it wasn't. And then that was, and the thing is that injury specifically, I didn't even do anything about it until I had severe back pain. And that was caused by the epidural because if, if you're a man that don't know, the epidural is like put right into your back and I would have like serious pain around there. I mean, then again, carrying a child will fuck with your back now. You might have to tell some of the men in the audience what an epidural even is because it's like, you feel good drug. My guy, if you try, I don't know why this just popped in my brain. But I was watching, you know, how you scroll through Facebook and you see random things. And there was a team mom where those guy was saying, don't give her an epidural because I don't want my child to have drugs. Fuck you. Fuck you. That's not how that works. Don't you fucking dare ever tell a woman that she can't get an epidural because you don't want your kid to have drug. Fuck that. Fuck you. Leave her the fuck alone. You've never had to push a walnut, a watermelon out of your ass. Don't you dare. Sorry. So where I was circling there is the epidural. Is the spinal injection they give you when you're delivering a baby? Part they got kind of left out until the end there. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. That was okay. I'm very passionate. Anybody that tells any male gender, don't tell a woman anything that has to do with childbirth. You don't have to fucking experience it. So shut the fuck up and help her. Thank you. I'm super nice. Yeah. Well, you're not wrong. So. Do you need a minute? No, I'm good. I'm good. Are you sure? I just I'm trying really hard to get off that soapbox. I'm just I'm trying to get. Anyway, but yeah, the if we're self assessing and you know, we use the elbow as an example because it's a simple joint. Can you can you can you move that part of your body through the same range of motion that you used to be able to? Is it not severely painful? Is there pain that's pretty localized? And you can like touch it. Is there a bruise? If it's a huge bruise and it's spreading and you've got a ton of swelling, well, then that that's indicative of a bigger injury. Again, that's probably something that you shouldn't necessarily wait around on. If you can't put weight on it, if you can't lift your arm sooner than later, because that's sometimes, I mean, I've had lots of people that'll have an issue with their shoulder can't lift their arm. A couple of days later, arms fine. But if you stop lifting your arm and you let it go for three months, which I just saw not that long ago, guy came in couldn't lift his arm up more than like six inches. There was nothing wrong with it. Like he went and he ran and got an MRI and there was nothing on the MRI. And I'm like, my guy, you can't lift your arm because you haven't lifted it in three months. I'm not going to lie. This is literally this episode is turning into battle of the fucking genders. I swear. It's just the dumbassery behind it. I mean, not to say that like sometimes it's just you don't have time. Like, but I'm just saying like, I'm like, I'm literally just rubbing my face. I can't even general guideline. If if you have given something a bit of a break, and it's been a couple weeks and it's not getting better, it's getting worse, and you're not able to return to what you were doing, that's about time to figure something out. Because it's pretty much shown you that, you know, giving it another couple weeks, it's not going to magically turn around, most likely. Whether it is a serious injury that needs, you know, medical, surgical, whatever intervention, that is not necessarily the case, but it does need another set of eyes and some advice beyond whatever it is you're doing with it because it's not getting better. Like, it's not always magic. No. And if you, I mean, just that, no, it's going to get, I already said this, it's going to get worse before it gets better. Just, just, just do something about it. Yeah, so don't let it get too much worse. But the, I mean, the category beyond that is, you know, something that is sore, like you do a workout and it's not just your typical muscle soreness, it's more, it's typically more in a joint, but it can be in a muscle, but it's not like, you know, that 24 to 48 hour later, it's sore, it's diff, I warm it up, it goes away, kind of thing. It's not that delayed onset muscle soreness that everybody gets after they push it in a workout. It's something more than that and it can gradually creep up over time and usually what I'll say to people there is if you're trying to self-manage something like that, that is something that I don't think is wrong to try. And the biggest thing is identifying, okay, what are you doing that's pissing it off? And that sound, that was more accusatory than I came across. No, that's probably the just amount of, that was a justified amount of accusative. You probably aren't like, and I feel like, again, I'm in this category of like, I will still fuck around and find out like, yeah, if it's not severe, it's not limiting like your day-to-day activities, it's kind of, you know, why bother it? If it's not, if I can still walk, run, jump, lift, all that fun supply, why do I have to care? And that is a very person specific thing. I mean, I've had lots of people to say, ah, this, this hurts. It doesn't really stop me from doing anything, it doesn't interfere with any of my activities, but I'd like it not to hurt. Like, that's reasonable. Oh, my shoulder always hurts when I bench. That's a classic example, because it comes in the door six times a week. Five and a half of those are men, just because they are. Women should be lifting heavy too, just throwing that out there. Yeah, maybe, maybe their form's better, maybe they're not left, but yeah, maybe that's it, maybe, maybe. I just made that generalization and I have nothing to back that up. I have no medical, no training, no nothing to back that up. I just made a presumption, so come at me, I don't care. Depends on the movement. I will say that, but we'll, we'll give the battle with really bad form too. Let's, let's, let's give the battle of the sex is a little break here, even though I kind of started that one. But it's true. Like, okay, my shoulder always hurts when I bench. And like, first thing you want to look at, okay, how much am I benching? Oh, well, I'm, I'm doing it six days a week, maybe don't. Like, but just. Are you benching? Well, like, and again, the assumption there is, yeah, I don't need help with my form. I'm like, well, your shit hurts. So you do, you should at least get, you know, a trainer or partner, partner workouts. This is like, probably a great, great point on that. And not always, but I feel like in every, like, workout pair of friends, there's, there's one who knows more. So sometimes sometimes they have the exact same amount of knowledge, but that's rare. So here's the thing, somebody pulled somebody to go to the gym with them to be fair. Right. Usually one person has like, come with me, I'm gonna go work out. So be honest in that assessment. Like, if you are not the person with more knowledge, you know, get some help on your form, see if that, see if changing your form makes it feel better. Like, that's kind of step one. There's a lot of things you can do temporarily to train around an injury. Cause we've, we've brought this up before, but definitely the last thing you want to do, unless it's a big injury, is stay out of the gym completely. Even then, you know, go to the gym, get your mental health on, like do some cardio that doesn't hurt. If you're to your lower body, do upper body. If it's something in your upper body, do some lower body, like you're definitely gonna heal faster, stay healthier, be a happier human being by continuing some version of your workout. That's, that's really a big important thing because if you, you know, you strain a bicep and you go sit on the couch for six weeks, well, not only did you like lose all the strength and muscle you built in that bicep, you lost your legs too. You lost your cardio. You, you, everything you've been working on fitness goals wise, you kind of just went to shit. And yeah, it sucks that you got injured, but there are still things you can do, and you don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water there. On the opposite side of that, don't, don't do something that's like, if your arm is in a sling and that puts you on such off balance and you want to go running, please don't, because if you fall and break the other one, that's, that's, that's not, no. I don't know, it always looks like you're a little, still, still be smart, but yeah, yeah, please. But I've worn a sling more than once, you can go ride the exercise bike. Maybe don't go run out if it's winter, like that kind of thing, or if you had a shoulder surgery, like running right away is probably not a great idea. It's kind of jarring, like, be smart, but there's probably something you can do. That said, if we're trying to keep you in the gym, you know, and you wanted, say, okay, I'm going to do every following the same kind of scenario we're using, I'm going to go do everything except my bench press. Does my shoulder get better? Okay, well, maybe my bench press just sucks, or I'm going too heavy, or I'm going too much, or I need to use a dumbbell instead of a barbell temporarily. I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of adjustments you can make to that. You can go, okay, change my form, still hurts. Okay, if I go a little lighter, is that better? Okay, then, you know, and people kind of overcorrect on this, they're like, oh, I just, I don't go heavy anymore. Like, maybe you need to go lighter for a little bit. Warm up, please. Maybe that's, that's absolutely warm up. You just needed to do the warm-up set. Maybe that's what you're missing is the warm-up set, like, that's 20 to 30 pounds lighter, unless that's zero, but. I mean, it's, it's very much, yeah, that's one of the most important indicators of whether, you know, a lot of injuries just get better. If we back off, let them calm down and then build back up. The vast majority of musculoskeletal injuries get better that way, but a big indicator if that's going to work is if you, does it feel better when it's warmed up? Like, it hurts every time I bench, you know, with the, the 75 pound dumbbells. Great. Are you doing that as your first set? Like, like you said. Yeah, I bet that shit hurts. So if you do, you know, do a set with half of that weight, okay. And then you do maybe another set with two thirds of that weight. Now does that 75 pounds hurt? Okay, it still does. Not as much. Okay, we're, we're warm up. He's back. Let it calm down. And technically you do more sets that way. And more volume. You can, you can get just as jacked by doing a lot of sets. Now, I definitely, oh, here people, I just, well, I don't, I just, I don't lift heavy weights anymore. I just do, you know, light weights, high reps. It depends on what you want to do. If you're trying to get stronger, you kind of got to lift heavy, but you know, maybe do that for a while. But the human body is very adaptable. When you get those kind of, we'll kind of class those as overuse injuries. What? There it was. There it was. It was going to come eventually, I saw it coming. Like that sounds like a dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I was going to say you could also do that, either up to down. I mean, you can warm up, like do more reps going up with lighter weight, make, hit that max. And then you can also do it going the other way, go 10, five, 10 pounds lighter and keep going if that's the problem and that's the point. Big fan of drop sets. Yeah. You know, and again, assuming that we're just talking about the programming like we are right now, we're not, you know, you got to, if if your body just starts hurting out of nowhere when you're working out, you got to eat right, you got to sleep, you got to drink water, you got to do all this other shit, you got to let your body recover stuff you should be doing anyway, because you want to work out for the rest of your life. So act like it. You want to work out really hard for a year and then fuck yourself up and not be able to do it anymore. Preach. That's the thing. We're assuming that that stuff is fairly well in line. And we're just kind of specifically talking about what do you do in the workout? Okay. I can go, but there's a hundred other variables that you can adjust with an exercise. And if you still want to get, well, like, if I don't go heavy, I don't, I'm not getting stronger. I'm not getting a good workout. You can use less weight and move at a slower speed. You do like a super slow tempo squat or a bench press. You're still going to get work. If you're trying to power through that and push the weight too fast, and that's why your tendons are pissed off, and you try to do that at, you know, three seconds down, pause three seconds up. Hey, you're not going to lift as much weight. You won't need to. You'll get the same amount of workout with less weight. Your body will be happier because you're actually controlling what you're doing. You'll probably actually get stronger, not using momentum. But a lot of this, you kind of, you kind of got to be honest with yourself about it. If you're throwing up weights, you can't control, you're going to get hurt at some point unless you're the luckiest person ever. Don't, don't drink yourself by saying you are. Don't, don't, don't take that bat. Let me tell you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's the thing. If I want to, you know, I want to, we'll stick with the example because it kind of just keeps things easier. I want to do 75 pound dumbbell bench press. Okay, that hurts. I do a couple warm upsets. It gets a little better. But, you know, I wanted, I'm going to go to 50. I'm going to go through a full range of motion. I'm going to go very slow, very controlled. I'm going to spend a lot more, what they call time under tension, doing that movement. I'm going to get a good workout. My muscles are still going to get smoked. I'm still going to get stronger. And they suck just as much. They suck more. Just a little bit more, honestly. Holding 10 seconds, five seconds at the bottom usually sucks, like, yeah, a little bit more. And you're probably going to have less pain. Maybe not immediately, but if you're having pain during the movement and then you're also starting, that's when people, you know, like they have pain during a movement when they work out and they're like, okay, I'm not going to stop what I'm doing. Maybe I'll just keep benching and it'll get better. But apply, keep saying benching, but apply it to squatting, pull-ups, what lunges, whatever the hell you're doing that's making your body unhappy. Then it starts to creep into other parts of your day. Now it's hurting when I'm not benching. Now I'm having trouble sleeping because my shoulder hurts at night. Like, now we're getting into problem territory. It's still the new post. My back hurts. I think I need a new mattress and I'm like, oh, it's not your ugly as shit deadlift that you need to fix. I think another thing, and it's been a long time since we said this, but there's a modification for everything. There's a modification for every type of workout that works the same types of muscles that you're looking for. So if the problem is, if you figure it out, if you finally push back your ego enough to realize it is bad form and you're just like, that's just not the exercise for me, switch it. Very much. Yeah, bodies are built different. I'm usually not the one to say anybody can't do any exercise, but if you've tried everything else and benching with a barbell still hurts, there's other things. There's machines. There's push-ups with weights on you. There's dumbbells. There's bands. You can find a way, you might need a coach or a trainer or whatever, to get what you need out of that exercise. A good resource on this would be actually our strong for life episode, was that we kind of broke the movements down by strength standards, but what I think would be useful about that episode is that we didn't break it down by muscles. We broke it down by movements, like a horizontal push and a horizontal pull, vertical push, vertical pull, that kind of thing. We talk about that a lot more in that episode, and that's really good for figuring out how do I find a substitution for this exercise. Well, just kind of break down what movement are you doing? Are you pushing? Are you pulling? What direction and what else do you have available weights or machines that's similar enough to that that you get the same stimulus, essentially? Yeah, I mean, you probably have already listened to that episode if you haven't got it, but if you're injured, go re-listen, please. It's really helpful if you're looking for exercise modifications and without specifics. Yeah, that was a funny one. But I mean, it's simple as like, again, we're going to stick with this example because it's working, but bench press. You can Google that, like bench press is what type of movement is that? And say it's a chest and shoulder and tricep movement, but it's a horizontal push. Then all you have to do is look up what other movements are a horizontal push. The terminology does necessarily matter, but what does that, or you know, the machines in the gym, they'll show you what muscles they work. If you're not everybody likes machines, some people like body weight stuff, some people like weights, there's purposes. I mean, for example, like I do Bulgarian split squats. Do they suck? Yes, but I also have balance issues. So instead of like lifting super heavy and fucking myself up by like doing them and then falling over and taking, you know, 160 pounds with me, I do there's a seated squat machine. And instead, I just do that one legged like it's it's easy to find things that will equal out. And in fact, I think I go a little heavier that way too. So there you go. I mean, there's definitely yeah, a case where, and again, all of these modifications can be temporary. For some reason, people are just like, die hard about an exercise and they want to do it, even though it's clearly hurting them like, consider this modification temporary. And you can you can come back to the thing you were doing when you feel better and try it again. I mean, a lot of times people, their form sucks because they're in pain like your body moves differently when it's in pain and people are trying to your body's trying to throw other muscles at this movement that it maybe shouldn't be or the muscles you're trying to strengthen are actually inhibited because you're in pain in your nervous system puts the brakes on you like that stuff that when you have a painful movement, it's it's different. Your body will move differently and there's not always a whole lot you can do about it. I can see what, for anybody's listening, I just literally got scared that my dog was about to bark and the thing is he turned around and looked out the window. So while Tim is, I am paying attention and he's talking, I totally snapped a photo and sent it to us like, what is this? Sorry, I totally took a soft subject. But that's the big thing. I mean, finding an equivalent exercise is the best way to keep doing what you're doing. And outside of a serious injury that needs assessment, if you can still, if it came on slowly over time and it's more than sore, but it's not severe and it's getting worse, like, okay, we need to make some modifications to what we're doing. So it doesn't keep getting worse. And if you're not looking to get help, which I can say all day, you should get checked out. Some people still aren't going to. So these are, these are the things you can do. You can work around an injury. If I still want a bench press, those 75 pounds, maybe I change the range of motion. You know, maybe I temporarily, if it only hurts at the very bottom of the bench press, maybe for a little bit, I don't go all the way to the bottom. And hey, it feels better. And then I can do it again. You don't know if you don't try. I'm not going to lie to be a complete bitch. I'm like, if you're not going to, if you're in pain and you bitch about it, and I tell you to go to the doctor and you don't shut the fuck up on some level, you guys, if you're going to sit there and bitch about being in pain and not do anything about it. That's that's the broader category is people who complain about being in pain, but don't do anything about it. Like, well, I mean, you clearly know you need to do something about it. That's that's that's that's a thing. And maybe, like I said, I might be just a complete bitch when I'm saying this, but it's like, you gotta, if you know, you notice your body is screaming at you, which I think in general, this whole episode is just listen to your body. But if you're listening to your body, you are complaining, you were saying, Hey, it hurts. And you say it to enough people. You a that should be your sign to go do something about it. But if you're not going to do something about it, you kind of get a karma's bitch. I mean, that there's a name for that kind of person. It's called an asshole because they ask you something and you tell them and then they don't do it. So why did you fucking ask me then? The more you know. And it's twice as bad when that person's paying or coming to you as a medical professional and asking for your advice on a problem that literally you are the expert in that's why they came to you and you give them the advice and they don't do it. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. Don't pay for something you're not going to use. Exactly. It hurts when I do this. Okay. Stop doing that. Can you do it differently? No. Can you take a break from doing it? No. Can you do this slightly different thing instead? I really I really like I don't want to. I really like that. Like, okay, then you're kind of leaving me without a lot of options here. [Music] [Music] I'm just yeah, they just like if you're aware you're injured, do something about it. If not, I mean, you kind of this is all definitely being a was it self-assessment, self-aware, self-motivated. You got to you got to have a little self-awareness to be like, hey, I'm not that's going to try to find a nicer way to say that. But if you keep doing the thing that's hurting you, yeah, you are the problem. I don't know where else you can go from there. Just I'm just saying like you you are the problem. I've been the problem like I get it. I am the problem, I'm at least self-aware. And that's the first step of recovery. Do as I say, not as I do. Yeah, always. But again, the the last thing that I want to see as a fitness professional, I was trying to find a less kind of pompous way to say it, but as a fitness and health care professional is to see people go, you come see me 20 years down the line after a knee replacement. And somebody's like, yeah, I used to work out, but I had to stop because X and like, okay. And now they're getting a knee replacement because they were inactive. I mean, that's when people are like, oh, I don't I don't squat anymore because it's bad for my knees. And the way you were squatting was apparently bad for your knees. So you just decided you're not going to squat anymore. Your legs got weak, et cetera, like, or just any number of things like the goal here is not to say that hurts, stop doing it. It's like, take a break, do it differently, change it up, go lighter, go a smaller range of motion, go slower, grab a different weight, use a different type of resistance, find another movement. You don't have to sit your ass on the couch. I mean, go to the gym and do everything but that and let it calm down. And once it feels a little better, try it again. Maybe don't jump back in at the same way you were using weeks ago. Because yeah, you you you you detrained a little bit, you got to build back up. And if you try to go back to the same way, you're probably walking right into the same problem. But you don't have to just stop doing something. You just have to find a way around. I mean, just, just, just, just, just, just, I like there's nothing else to put on top of it, then just just don't be the problem. Yeah, please don't just don't be the problem or if you're going to be a problem, be a problem to yourself only. Leave everybody else alone. Ask for, ask for advice, but if you're not going to follow that advice, don't expect a lot of sympathy. And the problem is you know exactly who we're talking about if you're listening and it's not you. Just, just, just, just saying. Thank you for listening to both sides of fit. If you enjoy our content, please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Play, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. You can also follow us on Instagram at both sides of fit or contact us with comments, feedback, or suggestions at both sides of fit pod at gmail.com. Stay safe, stay healthy. [BLANK_AUDIO]
How to handle an injury in the gym, big or small. How to work around it, things to try to get it better, and when you should get some help.
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