Despite advances in medicine and its various fields, a lot of people still hold onto beliefs that have been passed down to them. And while the people who may have passed down these beliefs and ideas may be well-meaning, latching onto these instead of acknowledging current available information can lead to adverse results.
For example, take the field of physical therapy Upper East Side practitioners are constantly upgrading their skills and keeping abreast with new developments. However, they still hear patients inquire about a few long-held myths, especially about injuries.
One of the persistent myths physical therapists hear is the idea that rest is the best medicine. True, you need to rest your body, especially the injured body part. However, this does not necessarily mean that you should avoid moving altogether. On the contrary, you should. If you are an athlete, you can still continue training. The difference in this situation is that you cannot proceed with your normal training and you may have to avoid using some exercises and modify others.
But why continue training and exercising? Contrary to the belief held by some that continuing with training can aggravate an injury, exercising will facilitate the healing of the injured tissues. Loading these tissues appropriately can help them become stronger. Abstaining from training, on the other hand, can make these tissues atrophy and get weaker. The important thing to remember here is to load the tissues properly in terms of timing and amount.
Another persistent myth held by quite a lot of people is the adage “no pain, no gain.” The truth is that pain is your body’s way of communicating with you, and if you do experience pain and push through with an activity, you can end up doing more harm to yourself and setting back your training.
If you continue with training despite experiencing pain over a period of time, you are changing your body’s movement patterns which in turn can lead to more pain and injuries.
When it comes to pain, you need to distinguish which ones come as a result of fatigue from exertion and which ones are caused by an injury or dysfunction.
If you have been dealing with tight muscles, you might have heard someone tell you to stretch more. Stretching is a vital component of training and you should definitely perform it regularly and with deliberate effort. However, tight muscles, more often than not, come as a result of some muscles compensating for underactive muscles. In some cases, muscle tightness comes as a result of weakness and lengthening of affected muscles. The solution, then, is not simply to stretch, but to strengthen the affected muscles.
