Chronic Pain

If you suffer from chronic pain, sometimes improving is as simple as getting a new perspective on the term “chronic.” If you’ve been labeled as chronic, then you know how devastating that can feel. And if you labeled yourself as chronic, then you can also be stuck in a cycle that is perpetuated by that very title, “chronic.” The general rule in the medical world is that if you have had pain for over 3-6 months, then it is considered chronic. Our definition of chronic pain at Exercise Progression is as follows and is also widely accepted by experts;

 Chronic pain is “pain persisting longer than the natural course of healing associated with a particular type of injury or pathology.”   

 This last definition does something very important for you. It actually explains the underlying reason why you are not getting any better. The reason is that the natural healing course is constantly being interrupted! The term “natural” implies that you are not doing things to aggravate the situation and you are giving the painful area a good environment to heal in. Well what if you have low back pain and you work a job that repeatedly requires you to bend, twist and lift heavy objects? That is definitely NOT a healing environment. So as long as you work that job, you can’t possibly have chronic pain because the natural course of healing never takes place. You will be stuck in a repetitive sub-acute cycle (it starts with acute, then goes to sub-acute, and finally chronic), and the treatment plan for sub-acute populations is very different than for chronic populations.  

Chronic situations call for more physically aggressive programs than sub-acute protocols because of the advanced “healing” that has taken place in the older chronic injury. But if you are misdiagnosed as chronic when you are really sub-acute, and you engage in a chronic protocol, then you are very susceptible to overworking the area and injuring it even more. Or even more common, overworking it and keeping it in a chronic state of pain. Hmmm, interesting isn’t it?

Our goal at Exercise Progression is to work with your diagnosis and focus on what makes your pain worse, and what makes it better. We’ve learned that if you consistently do more of what makes it better than what makes it worse, you will get better, every time. We do not care about sets and reps in the gym. We care if you can go through all aspects of life while allowing your natural healing cycle to progress uninterrupted. If that means teaching you how to operate in the gym, at home, in the office, in the plane, car, walking the dog, everywhere and anywhere, then that’s what your program will focus on. It is not unusual to spend the first few weeks practicing the best ways to cook, clean, sit, stand, lift, twist and shout. And you know what? That is what it takes to heal most pain. There is no such thing as magic exercises that cure pain. The magic is in what you do daily and most importantly what you DON’T do daily.

If you found this info searching for answers and have read this far, take the next step and contact us so we can show you how to go through life without interrupting your natural healing process.

We look forward to the opportunity of helping you in any way we can.

 Please feel free to contact us for a free consultation.