It’s always those mysterious types of pain that seem to come out of nowhere. You rest up for a bit, it goes away, then once you start exercising again, it comes back. This is a common scenario we see in our OHL physio rooms.
More often than not, it is a matter of overloading the body by exposing it to an amount of activity that is more than what it can handle. To understand this, let’s explore the tradeoff between tissue capacity and demand...
Tissue capacity vs tissue demands
Every tissue in the body has a certain level of capacity. This capacity is essentially like the ‘fitness’ of a given tissue. It decides how much stress it is able to handle before being overloaded and experiencing pain.
Each activity will require varying demands on our body. Walking, for example, will give much less demanding than sprinting, which affects the tissues differently.
The stress that an activity applies to tissues is also called the demands of the activity. When the tissue capacity is greater than the demands placed on it, everything is great. However, when the demands placed on the tissue are greater than its capacity, pain can result.
The response of tissues to stress
When stress is applied to the tissues, they will then respond with a predictable process; First, there will be fatigue (immediately), then a period of recovery (hours – days) and then, finally, a period of increased capacity. This is the point of exercise! It's a controlled amount of stress that increases capacity for the minimal amount of stress.
How does this relate to my pain that keeps coming back?
When tissues are doing lots of activity but are not given the required time for the recovery period, their capacity is exceeded. This will often result in pain that appears to come out of nowhere.
At this point, most people will rest, wait for the pain to pass, only to return back to their original exercise regime. The part that they are missing is that their tissue capacity has not increased through specific exercise. AT that point, returning to your activity will often involve making the same mistake again, causing the pain to return.
Why pain going away doesn’t guarantee you can safely return to exercise
When pain goes away, it tells us that the tissue has settled down and is handling the demands of everyday life. In fact, pain will often go away before full tissue healing takes place, often causing a mismatch between tissue healing and pain. This is common in muscle strains, tendon pains, and even bone-related pain (which all need loading). So, how do we know when the tissue is ready to go back? To return to exercise without the pain coming back, we need to know that the tissue capacity can handle that exercise stress.
We perform testing to know exactly what level the tissues are at. From there, we apply a graded exposure to stress. With specific exercise planning, we can apply the right amount of stress to the body tissues and gradually build that back to your level.
So, if you are experiencing recurring pain, it's important to consider how much activity you are doing and whether your body is handling it well. If you feel like you need an expert ally to sort out this balance for you, please reach out to OHL Physio this week via 9431 5955 or via our Client Portal online!
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