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ndb
209 Posts |
 Posted - 09/20/2006 : 09:07:45
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Hello,
Hope everyone is having a good day...
What's the view on doing strengthening excercises after an injury? I sprained my knee 3-4 days ago doing taekwondo (which has lots of kicking and leg pivoting). The pain is going down steadily, and I plan to go back to class in a day or two. But I am a little worried about reinjuring that part unless I do something to strengthen that area. Is my fear unfounded and strengthening has the same sort of role as Sarno says stretching does before excercise?
Sorry if this is a bit off topic, I thought I'd like the opinion of TMS'ers more than random stuff on the web. :)
best,
ndb |
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Fox
USA
496 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2006 : 11:23:02
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| I wouldn't do any strenghtening activities. If you have a true physical injury, your body should heal up quickly and naturally on its own, without any "PT" voodoo. If it doesn't heal up quickly, I would consider it TMS. Don't stay out of class long - even if you are hurting - because that will put the focus on the pain - as would PT stuff. I was in tae kwon do for 10 years, and I had plenty of minor knee injuries. I tried to go to class anyway and work through the pain and I never ran into any long term negative results. |
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Penny
USA
364 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2006 : 13:13:01
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Sarno mentions in MBP that the human body can fix a broken femur in 6 weeks, making the broken area even stronger than before. Our bodies are so remarkable; there is no reason we can't heal anything, at any age ... from tears to carpal tunnel.
Kick on!
Non illigitamus carborundum. |
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Wilf
Canada
53 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2006 : 16:46:32
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I hate to disagree, but in my view short-term rehab physiotherapy is valid to treat a sports injury. Over the years I have had a number of injuries:One was a broken femur: the bone may heal in 6 weeks, but the damaged soft tissue takes longer to heal and is helped by physiotherapy because you loose a lot of strength with a serious injury like a broken femur. My re-hab in this case took 9 months and I have had no problems since. I also tore a shoulder: the AC joint. The re-hab with physio took about a month; no problems since.
On the other hand, long ago I tried to treat my TMS pain with physio and was completely unsuccessful. At that time I did not know why, but now I do.
In my opinion there is a significant difference between TMS pain and the pain sustained by a physical injury such as a broken bone or a torn ligament. These latter injuries will heal and from my experience, will be significantly helped in the healing process by a good physiotherapist.
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Darko
Australia
387 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2006 : 20:13:00
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ndb,
I think what can happen as TMSey type people, we can tend to label everything with TMS. You need to put things into perspective, if you focus and worry about your knee then it will likely become a TMS injury. What you did was a valid injury and from what I understand, the human body heals faster when you move the busted area, so do that. If treatment will help you do that better, than I don't really see an issue with it. What IS important is your MIND SET about the injury.......
Darko |
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ndb
209 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2006 : 22:32:35
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Thanks Fox, Penny, Wilf and Darko for your responses.
I am definitely trying not to obsess about the knee. More like willing myself to believe it'll be ok so I won't have to miss too much taekwondo.
Fox, it was reassuring to hear of your experience.
My main worries are that I don't want to miss TKD class (I started to learn when I was 17, but then my parents didn't let me continue...then it was one thing after another, until this year, when I finally started learning again. I'm 26 now, and its weird how emotionally affected I am about this.)
The other is that I'm perfectly happy just being able to go back to class and not doing anything special for the knee...I'm worried because I don't know how to find out if I need to do something, or what exercises to do. I would really dread going to a PT now, i.e. not being sure of their competence etc. Mostly I am worried on the one hand about missing classes, and on the other about reinjury/ it not getting better if I resume too soon.
Darko, I agree with your point about moving being good for it...and I am doing my normal daily stuff, walking to school etc. But I am worried about the TKD level of activity. On the the hand, I feel too impatient to miss classes until there is no pain. I guess my mind set DOES need to change in the sense that I am angry that this had to happen, just when healthwise things were finally going well.
ndb |
Edited by - ndb on 09/21/2006 08:08:22 |
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hsb
149 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 05:49:19
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Wilf you said:
"In my opinion there is a significant difference between TMS pain and the pain sustained by a physical injury such as a broken bone or a torn ligament. These latter injuries will heal and from my experience, will be significantly helped in the healing process by a good physiotherapist"
I find that this is the hardest thing to figure out; whether something is TMS or not. Why would a torn ligament be different from knee pain, achilles, pain or anything else? It is my biggest hurdle .... to figure out if an injury or pain is real or not real and what should be treated or not. Is it the chronicity that makes it TMS, i.e. something that doesn't heal in 2-3 weeks? This is what confuses me.
HSB |
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Fox
USA
496 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 07:21:02
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| NDB - Another negative effect of missing your TKD classes is that you are missing the regular opportunity to release anger that could be generating TMS sypmtoms. For me, TKD was the ultimate anger-releasing activity, and if I missed the workouts (at school particularly - with the violent sparring - but also the home workouts to some degree), I would be lethargic and less optimistic in my viewpoint that particular week and would get into the obsessive thing worrying about every little ache and pain. Of course, stretching is essential in TKD, if you want to be able to deliver effective kicks to the head, but the stretching, as in ballet, is performed for practical purposes - not to relieve pain or to strengthen a "weak" or "vunerable" part of your body ...Now, in response to Wilf - As for the idea that PT is necessary for rehab from a broken leg, my son experienced a badly broken lower leg (happened during soccer) - he went through the rest, cast and crutches phases - but he was given no PT instructions. He was playing soccer again in 2 months. |
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Fox
USA
496 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 07:51:23
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| My perfectionistic nature compels me to clarify my earlier post. As I remember (it was 3 years ago), my son actually did not return to team soccer for 4 months, but he was kicking the ball around the front yard at some point earlier than that. |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 11:06:36
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The thing that I think is actually most relevant here, ndb, is your concern with getting back to TKD right away and not even wanting to wait until the pain is gone. You mention that you may have a strong emotional attachment to the classes, which may be worth exploring. It sounds like you are pushing yourself to get back, to do well, to not get behind -- rather than just taking things as they come, being gentle with yourself and going at your body's own pace, enjoying both your rest time and your workouts (not that anyone enjoys an injury, but taking some pleasure in the rest time you get as a result is possible). This seems very TMS-personality to me, pushing oneself and being rather unforgiving to oneself physically or mentally. In that sense your injury can be an opportunity to explore, and focus on the emotional, and then you are less likely to have TMS try to take advantage of the injury while you are busy worrying about how it feels and whether it is getting better, which is exactly what the gremlin would want you to worry about!
I think the person to ask about how to properly resume your TKD would be your instructor. Surely it's common for people to sprain themselves, and he/she would know how people usually handle getting back to exercise.
Physio is not a negative thing for a real injury. Physios aren't crackpots and real injuries are what they are supposed to, and do, help people with. But we are also able to recover on our own, especially if it's a minor injury. I wouldn't bother with physio just for a minor sprain that is already healing a lot in a few days.
I have been thinking about the "real injury" issue. One of the things that it seems like TMS does is undercut our confidence in judging our pain. A person without TMS who gets injured I think usually has a sense of feeling the injury heal over time. First it may hurt less, and then they may feel they can safely hobble on it, then walk on it, but not jump or run, then do some light exercise, and then get back to full activity. That's a normal kind of healing progression and if that isn't happening, that's when I'd think that TMS had grabbed a real injury as an opportunity to come back.
It is possible to re-injure an injured place if recovery time is inadequate, and the way that most people avoid that (I think!) is either by doctor's advice wrt wearing a cast, etc, or just by instinct, when minor injuries are involved. Just feeling if it feels strong and capable and whether the pain is "good", a kind of stretchy soreness or a gentle ache, or bad, an acute feeling of pain that interferes with further activity. And when it's time to rest, by whether it starts to ache gradually worse (that's my experience of how a healing injury tells you when to stop).
FWIW and YMMV.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
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larkascending
Canada
26 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 11:22:40
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Hi ArmChairLinguist,
I really like your post(are you sure you aren't a therapist??)- it makes good solid sense. what does FWIW and YMMV mean?
Lark |
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ndb
209 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 11:58:09
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Thanks ACL, you really said the things I was feeling well. I do always feel very stressed at missing any kind of classes, but especially TKD.
As for asking the instructor, at the moment, I'm too hesitant to ask him this sort of question. This is also part of my emotional feeling about this class...I REALLY like the teacher and want him to think I am doing well.
ndb |
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hsb
149 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 12:58:40
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ACL:
Very very well put. I have also wondered how my running friends (thouse w/o TMS) deal with their injuries. I know my friends get very very unhappy when they get hurt and they do obsess as well BUT, I kind of think that the obsession doesn't take them over like TMSers. I know for me, I search the internet for all causes and treatments; I go nuts when everyone tells me what their cure was, I get upset when my injury takes forever to heal and their's does not. The TMS Gremlin gets a hold of me and the tape loops begin. I have the fear that this will another one of my six months out of running. Right now I am in the midst of a hamstring thing. I am torn by the running v. not running and whether it is a legitimate injury or not.
My good friend has an injury now and she is incredibly upset because her marathon is in 3 weeks. Her reaction to it is similar BUT different. She is crazed about trying to heal this injury in time to run the marathon, but I don't think it consumes her like a TMS'er. It is the focus of our lives.
I hope I explained this well.
HSB |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 17:03:20
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lark, thanks! I...wow. No one has ever asked me if I was a therapist before. :) (FWIW is "for what it's worth", YMMV "your mileage may vary".)
I think the difference between TMS-personality reaction to an injury and others may be in the level of dependence, and the desperation that the dependence engenders. hsb, you seem to be very desperate to find that you have no injury, desperate to continue running. Why? Are you looking to running to save you from something? From yourself? Your emotions? Do you need running?
It sounds like your friend runs because she likes running, and she is upset because she can't do something she likes. Yet it doesn't take her over -- maybe because she has no dependence on running.
We have been dependent on our physical pain to save us from our unconscious emotional pain. One of the likely outcomes when we eliminate the physical pain, which I think has been exemplified in many threads here (think GW thread, or weather thread), is that we substitute something else for the dependence. Activity is a likely substitute, because Sarno encourages a return to activity, and many of us have activities that we really like and are excited to get back to. There's little doubt that whatever we substitute is probably better than pain! But it means that the problem is not yet solved. Maybe it never will be, in toto, but it's better to keep working on it so that we are not simply trapped in another dependence. Sarno's message to resume activity is intended to make us free -- free to choose what we do or don't do -- not to trap us in another, less unpleasant cage.
ndb, I hope you're able to overcome your concerns about speaking to your teacher. I will add that from my old Tae Kwon Do experience I learned that a martial-arts teacher is not just a teacher of forms and concepts, but a teacher of your spirit, a mentor for psychological development. Ideally such a teacher would never judge you for an injury, nor for your progress, except to assess whether you are working at your proper learning pace, but would applaud your ability to come and seek appropriate guidance.
Hmm, it seems work frustration makes me likely to pour out my small poetry of thought onto this message board! 
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
Edited by - armchairlinguist on 09/21/2006 17:05:38 |
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Fox
USA
496 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2006 : 08:10:15
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| Yes, Armchair is right. You need to try to move beyond your standard TMSer's need for approval and confide in your instructor and ask his/her advise....As for folks being desperate to return to running, it's not all psychological in my opinion. There's a physical addiction (a positive addiction, however, as William Glasser states in his magnificent book "Positive Addiction" - which compares the benefits of running to meditation - and gives the edge to running) associated with running due to the brain chemistry factor which includes physical withdrawal symptoms. When I used to run 6 miles a day, every day, and I dared to miss a day, neither my body nor my mind worked right that day - it was a terrible feeling all day. |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2006 : 09:18:36
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quote Fox:
"...as William Glasser states in his magnificent book "Positive Addiction" - which compares the benefits of running to meditation - and gives the edge to running)..."
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From what I gleaned from my Yoga days, the purpose of the asanas, (the physical poses), was to prepare the mind for the rigors of meditation. A fit body makes it easier for the mind to do it's work. |
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ndb
209 Posts |
Posted - 09/24/2006 : 20:44:20
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Well, I went to taekwondo class today. I spoke to my teacher, who said he couldn't give me advice on what to do, but if I wanted, I could do kicks with only one leg.
I didn't have too much pain during class, a few twinges once in a while and that feeling you get sometimes when you jerk something too far out.
It is a bit painful now after class, more like an ache or mild spraine feeling. Its not terrible. But I am concerned about it not getting 100% ok unless I take some time off :(
I was also pretty sad and dissapointed at the end of class today since I couldn't do everything with full effort. :( |
Edited by - ndb on 09/24/2006 20:45:03 |
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After injury
