Body breakdowns...

What do you do when you have aches and pains after the gym (injury pain not DOMS)? Do you take time off and rest it or ignore it and keep going?  Well neither of these choices are optimal for recovery and long term growth. 

Don't get me wrong rest is important for recovery to overcome the initial discomfort, but you need to understand the reason why it happened in the first place. Your body is trying to tell you something so give it the attention it deserves. 

Make an honest assessment of your postural imbalances, mobility restrictions and compensation patterns, and have a plan to correct the biomechanics that led to the overload injury. Otherwise the injury can come back to haunt you when you start training again, as the root cause has not been addressed and recruitment patterns remain the same. (biomechanics - how the skeletal and muscular system work together to produce movement under different conditions).

You need to be patient and take a step back in order to move forwards. Use mobility exercises to help break the cycle and strengthen the problem areas, and use a scaled or modified version to reduce the demand of the exercise. This will enable you to refine the movement patterns and move more efficiently.

Also it is helpful to think of your body as a chain link fence. If you have an ongoing issue with one area of the body; it will have a knock on effect on other areas of the body. so tackle the problem rather than avoiding working out or ignoring it altogether.

It is hard to pinpoint what is happening and rectify on your own, so seek advice from a professional who can guide you in these matters. Please feel free to contact me if you would like a training review.