Some lessons from training and riding this week…

– Just because someone is a therapist doesn’t mean they are the best option for you. If you seek help for a chronic injury (which is usually caused by dysfunction in the joint above or below where the pain actually is) and the therapist treats it the same way they would an acute injury (which usually does come from the affected joint) find someone else.

In other words, if you have a nagging joint pain that is getting worse you don’t need rest and isolation exercises for that joint. You need manual mobilization and stability exercises so find a therapist that understands the difference in the two types of injuries and how to best treat both. It is your right to find someone who you feel comfortable with and you don’t have to work with the first therapist you get referred to.

– In this same vein, I really think that avoiding movements that cause pain is a bad idea when trying to fix the problem. I think that you should modify the movement so that you can do it pain free, not avoid them outright. If someone tells you “don’t squat” when you tell them you have chronic knee pain be wary – a better approach might be to figure out how you can squat pain free and work from there. On the surface this might seem like the same thing but avoiding a movement and avoiding pain during a movement are fundamentally different approaches.

– Simplicity wins over complexity 90% of the time. In the last few months I have greatly simplified the workout programs at my facility and the results have been pretty impressive. We’re down to a 15 minute warm up, four exercises broken into two super-sets (a mini-circuit of 2 exercises) and a 5 station cardio-strength training circuit. The funny thing is that these workouts are producing better results than the more complex and “complete” approach I was using a few months back.

I feel like things in the facility have taken a big step forward lately – I’ve probably seen more change in the programs I write change happening in the last few months than in the previous year or so. This stuff will be trickling out to my Inner Circle online coaching group first and then my other online programs soon, I just have a bit more real world testing to do before I start releasing it all. Stay tuned…

-James Wilson-