Happy Friday! I hope you have all been enjoying this amazing spring weather we are having. I know it really helps motivate me to get out and move when it is like this!
I made it back from a super quick trip out of state and was really excited to get back to training group on Wednesday night. As a result of exercise and then travel my whole body felt really tight Wednesday and right after lunch I kn
elt down to get something and felt a sharp pain in my right thigh. The funny thing about our bodies is that sometimes when we least expect it the most benign things can cause us injury. I limped around a bit and put some ice on it. This week we all meet at Westchester Lagoon, I started my warm up and did one small lap walking, then I tried to run. It hurt quite a lot but being the stubborn lady that I am, I kept trying. I had to modify on some of our warm up exercises, especially the butt kicker. It just felt like it was on fire. I was able to jog some on our run, which though painful was beautiful, we ran all the way around the lagoon and the weather was perfect. When I finished my first lap the coaches asked how I was doing… sadly not great it hurt quite a bit. They suggested that I not try to do a second loop and I just cool down. I walked slowly to the bridge and back. I am not going to lie I was pretty upset about it, it is only the second group and I was having to modify because of injury.
I think the biggest lesson of this week is patience, when we are injured we often want to just get through it and move on, but healing takes time. Many of us are programmed to believe in the “no pain no gain” mentality but I can tell you after working in orthopedics for over 10 years this is rarely the case… too bad I usually still don’t take this advise myself. It is one thing to have discomfort but we need to be conscious of the difference between discomfort and pain. Pain is our body telling us that we have gone too far. I was hoping to make it to the long run on Saturday but I will take my own advise and rest.
If you do have a muscle pull here are some tips to help with you: 1. Protect the injured muscle by wearing a compression bandage or sleeve, you can use an ace wrap or buy a compression support for most extremities at the local pharmacy.
2. Rest- This really goes for any orthopedic injury. Continuing to train on an injury will prevent it from healing. Sit down and elevate the extremity and take it easy.
3. Ice- While elevating apply ice for 10-20 mins every hour. Make sure that you are protecting your skin from contact with the ice and don’t over do it.
If the pain doesn’t improve or gets worse come and see us at ORCA we would be happy to help! Enjoy your weekend.
Sabra
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