Working Out in Pain

So what kind of pain did I have to deal with?  There have been so many let's see if I can remember.

achilles tendon
knees
hips
lower back
shoulders
neck
tennis elbow
wrists

Some of these were pretty constant, others would come and go.  For example Yoga would cause me a lot of wrist pain.  Plyo was hard on the knees.  Resistance days would affect other things like my shoulder or tennis elbow.  Honestly the thing that finally let me to what was at least part of the solution was the tennis elbow.  That pain was quite crippling.  In the summer of 2008 I put a retaining wall up in my backyard.  This was a pretty substantial undertaking consisting of a dump truck full of stone blocks averaging from 200-300 lbs each.  By the time that project was done I could barely lift my arms above my shoulders.  I knew that one of my neighbors was some kind of a therapist.  I had seen him on a local TV station one day where he was giving advice on how to lift weights.   I spoke to his wife one day, found out where he worked and made an appointment.  He specializes in sports injuries.  He is a pretty busy guy so it took about a month before I could get in to see him. Deep muscle massage.  It hurts but it works.

Generally most of the joint pains I have had are caused by muscle tightness and\or muscle imbalance (more flexible on one side than the other).  Every one of the problems I have mentioned has been "fixed" by massage.  I say "fixed" because they can and have flared up again from time to time.  For example if I get sick and miss working out for a few days it's not unusual for me to start to feel a bit of tennis elbow  However I have learned to manage most of these myself using specific stretches shown to me by my massage therapist.  I call those stretches the "Dan Dozen" even though I've never counted them.  I also have some exercises I came up with myself to help with wrists and tennis elbow.

Wrists and tennis elbow.  For me the issues have been caused by the muscles and tendons in my forearms.  apparently sometimes tendons beside each other can "stick" to each other.  Getting them to release can be fairly painful but well worth the trip.

Neck. Most of the pain I have in my neck is due to muscle tightness in a shoulder or in the upper back as well as just tight muscles in the neck.  I broke a collarbone when I was a teenager.  I'm sure my shoulders are not as symmetrical as they used to be and this likely contributes to neck and shoulder pain as well.

Shoulders  For the longest time my shoulders used to click a lot.  I assumed that was just the way it was.  Over time doing P90X I developed quite a bit of pain in my left shoulder.  Again, my massage therapist has helped with that by working on the rotator cuff and all around the shoulder

Hips.  I used to have a lot of hip pain.  This was caused by tightness in the glutes causing a muscle imbalance.  Get rid of the tightness and the hip pain magically went away.

Knees.  My knees used to be quite sore from doing P90X.  I just assumed that I had bad knees and that was just the way it was going to be for the rest of my life.  I resorted to wearing knee braces to provide some support and reduce the pain a bit.  Again I was able to get rid of my knee pain courtesy of my massage therapist.  the knee pain I had was caused by muscle tightness in my hamstrings and calf muscles.  Once we got rid of the knots, the pain went away.

Lower Back.  Again, for me this is primarily muscular.  If I have lower back pain a massage can usually alleviate it.  I do however also go to a chiropractor once a month for maintenance.  I found when I have gone off that schedule with my chiropractor that my back gets worse.

Achilles Tendon. If I ever have achilles tendon pain again I will likely not tell my massage therapist.  Him working on the bottom of my foot was the most painful thing I have ever experienced.  I will just resort to stretches and using some kind of roller on my foot.

I now go and see my massage therapist every couple of months and just have him work on things that have given me a bit of trouble.  Helps keep me in pretty good shape.