Attention Athletes and Active Individuals!!!

This one is for you! Pain is not weakness leaving the body!

For many of us lifelong athletes, that is not what we were led to believe. However, thankfully our therapist Kelly Wilkins has a great step by step plan for helping us weekend warriors squash old beliefs. Here is your roadmap to Activity Modification- modifying daily tasks to ensure that you are optimizing your recovery from injury.

1.       Prioritizing

Vary your activity to avoid repetitive stress. Complete the activity when you are most rested- for some this is in the morning, some in the afternoon. If you can plan your activities on a daily basis, you will feel mentally better about accomplishing more when you are in less pain.

2.       Pacing

Listen to your body. Change activity regularly as well as your position to avoid pain. This is an important one. You must be in tune to your body and the signals it is trying to tell you. It’s telling you those messages for a reason. And that reason is not because you are a weakling or a wimp.

3.       Planning

Plan your day- break up activity to avoid over doing. Break tasks into smaller activities throughout the day or week. If you are like me and enjoy knocking things off your ‘to-do list’, this can be a hard one especially when you are short on time. However, the more you listen to this specific task, the faster your recovery can be and the sooner you can be moving without pain.

4.       Positioning

Reorganize to avoid repetitious tasks especially overhead. Keep what you use the most accessible at waist height. Minimize lifting heavy loads. Keep items in close avoid lifting with arms out stretched. Watching your posture is a very important component to ensuring your body positioning is optimal.