7 Reasons Why People in Pain Need Movement
The research shows that movement is needed to help treat pain for most conditions. Despite this evidence, people in pain usually take time off to rest the issue. The type and degree of exercise is different depending on the problem, but progressing through pain-free movement is an important part of each pain plan. Here are the reasons why keeping up with your movement is an important focus for the recovery process from pain and injury.
Here are 7 ways that movement helps to solve pain…
1. Strength
The body needs a strong support structure. For example, an underlying issue for most atraumatic rotator cuff tears is weakness of the muscles that support the scapula. Improving strength and resiliency improves function to take the stress off an injury.
2. Natural Medicine
Exercise releases endorphins that distract the brain from perceiving the pain. Time and time again, exercise demonstrates a pain-inhibiting effect.
3. Movement Compensation
You can pick up the slack for broken pieces in the body by training it to work in other ways. This redundancy is important to the resiliency of the human body by allowing it to adapt to maintain its function.
4. Healing Effect
Exercise helps to wave a red flag around what needs attention. It directs our repair systems towards damage and guides the generation of strong and healthy tissue.
5. Stops “Kinesiophobia”
This word of the day means fear of movement. It’s actually an important factor in the rehab process. Many injuries become worse by a fear that any movement will cause pain or further injury. Progressing through pain-free movement is important in overcoming this fear and getting past an injury.
6. Empowerment
The need to rely on others hinders progress. Exercise instills power and confidence that you can help end your pain. This is important to get on with an active life.
7. Injury Prevention
Many people fear that even if the pain is gone, an injury will only worsen if it’s not fixed with surgery. This is a misconception that is harmful to recovery! Even with surgery, the underlying movement issues that may have led to the injury aren’t fixed. By addressing these movement issues, you stop the injury from getting worse and set it up for healing.
