Rehab

Sports Recovery, How Important is it?

Rest helps so we don’t have the monster plateaus

A few months ago I was helping out in a local D II School in their strength and conditioning area. The kids where great we had about 9 different sports from Men and Women to work with. We had some kids men and women who worked really hard some came and worked hard some of the time and another group of kids I wonder why are you here.

After the second game we had a freshmen lineman who has the strongest underclassmen and probably the top 5 on the whole team. He loved the gym and working hard. On the second game he got a concussion and with NCAA rules had to wait to be cleared with the athletic trainers. He came in on Tuesday after the concussion without being cleared to go back to normal practice. When we told him sorry you need your rest he was quite upset.

Here is what I told him and know as a powerlifter and trainer alot of people forget about. To gain any long term results as it comes to fitness, Gaining a better athletic advantage from the gym, or Just your health alone there are some major rules to follow and number one is Rest. I told him when you come to train we work you real hard and at that point you are weaker. J.M. Blakely said in Powerlifting USA   ” you get weaker at the gym” he is right. We think just coming to the gym doing are workout for an hour we will get stronger and in some aspects you will get stronger but if we don’t allow the body to recover by proper nutrition and rest from the workout we will first hit a plateau and then if we still don’t change are behavior we will become weaker.

Why will we become weaker? When you first go to the gym and start exercising you start to notice an increase. This is because of the nervous system and reprogramming your motor pathways. So for a few weeks you will see a good increase then you will start to see alot smaller gains afterwards. Now the rest from  exercise is for two areas of the body the Muscles and your nervous system. When you start feeling sluggish a lack of desire to go to the gym your overworking the nervous system and if you keep up the pace you will see injures. So when we are looking at a routine to do at the gym make sure you tell yourself how am I going to recover from the workout.

Why start now?

Ok so we all take risk and our own daredevils and risk takers.One thing we can never take risk on is what happens from an injury or illness During life we all have ups and downs as it relates to our health. My wife is a prime example of this. As an high school all american in softball for high school she has had many ups and downs. At a big 95 lbs, she was the catcher, with no regards to her body she never dropped the ball when being run over. Now it’s been 12 years since she graduated and now she is feeling the effects of that treatment. You can start to see it my medical bills.

This example tells me two things was she hurt while playing and how is she treating the injury than and now. Now not all of us are athletes but all of us will get an illness or an injury at some point in life. The only way we can be positive that it won’t hinder the quality of life of each of us is by first acknowledging something is wrong .

Seeking an educated and experience physicians or specialists will be able to take the injury and resolve the problem. To continue with the example of my wife, she loved the game and hated to miss a game Now at age 30, her quality of life is still good but How much better would her wrist and shoulders be if she just said something is wrong.

Keep in mind seeing the physician or specialist is only the middle step the last is setting a rehab program to move forward. The last thought is once an injury occurs and a rehab has happened we can’t stop there.  That specific area will never be able to be at 100% there will always need to be some emphasis on continue the stability of the injury. Will the intensity be the same from day 1 of rehab to 50 years down the road. No but if you don’t do something  day-to-day it like anything else will atrophy and the area of the injury will never actually get to 100 % because with an injury comes scar tissue. So going forward lets resolve the problem before it resolves us.

Rehab

Have you been injured or just had surgery? How are you overcoming the pain? A doctor may prescribe medication, but that only helps so that the body may heal.

You also have to strengthen and generate better blood flow to clean out the toxins from the injury. So how do you start a rehab process? When does it end? Now I have mentioned that you have to strengthen the area and generate blood flow.Make sure that your physician yourself and the Rehab physicality are on the same page. When anyone is designing any type of health related process there has to be a plan. No plan means no actual  success, There should also be an evaluation during the process between all three parties. Last but not least ask questions if you feel uncomfortable with any situation ask why?

So on your way to regaining your health remember ask questions, have a plan and ensure each party knows what is happening and what has happened through evaluation and process what is next.