I have treated back pain for more than 20 years.
It started back in high school – warming up for a football match, everything felt good … and then *snap *, my back confiscated. I had no idea what had happened. The only thing I knew was: it hurt, I could hardly move and I was scared.
That moment started a lifelong journey of learning about fitness, mobility, injury prevention – and also learning how is possible deal with If you realize that not everything is under your control.
I learned how to train better. I ate a nutritious diet. I gave priority to sleep and regularly kept the corrective exercises prescribed by my doctors and physiotherapists. But although I did “everything well” to the 6-24 months, I would be hit by a serious back flare. Sometimes it takes a few days. Sometimes I struggled with it for years.
The latter was the worst.
I played for months in a literal C-shape. I couldn’t stand upright. I couldn’t move the way I wanted. And more than the physical pain, it was the psychiatral That got me.
“Am I going to be stuck?”
“How long will it take this time?”
“Who am I even if I can’t move or teach or coach like me in the past?”
It messed with my identity in a way that I was not even fully aware in the beginning.
I am the trainer. The coach. The man who teaches others how to move well. I am the father who is struggling on the floor with his children. It takes care of the physical labor around our house.
Now I worked from bed and I wondered if I would ever feel “normal” again.
In the end I came out of pain again (not everyone does it). And it taught me some valuable lessons.
What I learned:
✅ Play the hand that you are treated.
It appears that I have congenital spinal stenosis (a narrowing of the spine). I didn’t cause it. I can’t ‘repair’ it. But I can build a plan around it. Physiotherapy and strength training are very similar! In its simplest form, it is all a version of ‘Exposing therapy’. Emphasize your body just enough and in the right ways to get the reaction you want. Not too much, not too little.
In the course of time I learned the movements that previously cause a flare -up. And I can organize my training to build a larger “buffer” in strength and mobility in that area.
It is not what I would have chosen for myself. But it’s the best way I know how to respond.
✅ Recovery is as much mental as physical.
Shortly not the mental and emotional toll that takes on an injury for you or a loved one. You can do all the “right things” and still feel that you are not making progress if your brain is flooded with pain, fear, frustration or shame. You may not even recognize the impact it has on you! Me felt As if I used everything great. But my loved ones could see the toll. The mental stress (let alone the physical pain) accepted me.
I learned this sentence from a mentor of mine, and it still resonates to this day. “Start where you are. Do what you can do. Use what you have.” It is much easier said than done, but falling back on this mentality helped me at some of my darkest moments.
✅ Movement is still worth fighting.
Even if it takes months. Even if it is slower than I would like. Even if exercise does not look the same as before. It is still worth working towards.
The mental and physical benefits of movement, in each Form I can do it, are too powerful to ignore.
✅ The same solution does not work every time.
This was one of the most difficult to learn. There was no “one size fits all” solution for my pain.
- Sometimes heat helped. Sometimes it didn’t.
- Sometimes an exercise would feel great. Sometimes it would feel terrible.
- Sometimes anti -inflammatory oral steroids helped. Sometimes they didn’t do that.
This made me learn to approach every new flare-up as an experiment. To do every day as a small test of what I could do. And this is the same approach that we have learned to follow with our own customers – even those who are not dealing with an injury or chronic condition. What worked for them in the past can give us instructions, but it may not be the best current Solution for what they need.
More than whatever, this made me a better coach.
I understand it now …Real Understand – how people with chronic pain or injuries feel.
The fear, the doubt, the sorrow to lose part of what you make You.
That perspective made me more empathetic, more flexible and more useful – and it is something that I tried by giving to our entire coaching staff here at Nerd Fitness.
If you are dealing with pain, setbacks or the feeling that your body has betrayed you lately, I see you.
It can take longer than you would like.
It may look different than before.
But you can still build up strength, self -confidence and momentum.
And if you ever need help to find out how you can do that in a way that fits your body, your history and reality? I would like to help.
Just shoot a message.
– Coach Matt