An unusual pain came over my elbow as I trained a couple of weeks ago. I say elbow, but it seems to stem from the brachialis. It wasn’t debilitating, but it was noticeable in my everyday movement which was uncomfortable.
Having trained Monday to Friday plus a few occasions where I’ve trained twice a day, I put it down to over training. Ok, I thought, with the half term holiday for a week around the corner, I decided to take a step back to recover. My readers will be aware that I will take school half term holiday off from the gym for a number of reasons, but the biggest by far is that my kids are at home and I appreciate spending time with them. Of course, I still have to be in the gym for my clients, but I rarely stick around to train myself. It gives me a natural break from it. And on this occasion, it seemed like I needed it.
But as the week went by, my arm became even worse. It went from a sharp pain to becoming a constant dull ache.
My advice to my trainees in this situation is…
* Always listen to your body. If you can’t train then take it easy and have a few days off (or train a different part of the body) but
* If you feel that you can train through the pain, you might find that the pain will ease.
It was totally coincidental that I had to take it easy after my injury due to the half term holiday, but I didn’t feel that my lay off was doing it any good at all. In fact, the pain was getting worse. Once I got back to the gym, plan B was in place. I trained through the pain.
And now, after a week back at training as normal, my injury has almost totally disappeared.
When my kids have a fall at football and start crying I assess the situation very quickly. I need to know where it hurts. Are there any cuts? Is it bleeding? But 99% of the time it has been a case of telling them to ‘run it off’. I’ve no doubt that it hurts at the time and there might be niggling pain associated with it afterwards, but I think that there’s usually a good case for ‘running it off’.
Training through minor injuries allows the body to maintain strength and conditioning, therefore enabling an injury to heal. But this must be up to each individual’s honest assessment. If you blame any twinge or niggle on not training because you can’t be bothered, then you might as well just be honest with yourself and admit that you can’t be bothered. However, if an injury is seriously affecting your performance or your life outside of the gym then giving the gym a miss and seeking professional advice might be an appropriate course of action.
Either way, be sure to give pain the elbow.
Never Give Up PT 