Movement & Injury
Movement is so important while managing an injury.
Popular thought on how to manage an injury has shifted over the years. Gone are the days of just icing your injury and resting–and that’s a good thing in my opinion! Movement is the best medicine for the vast majority of injuries.
We’ll talk about some best practices on managing your injury.
You’ll learn how to incorporate the most appropriate kinds of movement, as well as when it is a good idea to take a break for a while. Not every injury is the same, so it’s important to use the right approach in your particular situation.
R.I.C.E. vs P.O.L.I.C.E. vs M.E.A.T
Which Injury Management Protocol Should You Use?
There are many different injury management protocols out there, and it seems like there are new acronyms being proposed every day.
Here’s what they stand for, so you have a frame of reference:
R.I.C.E.
• Rest
• Ice
• Compression
• Elevation
P.O.L.I.C.E.
• Protection
• Optimal Loading
• Ice
• Compression
• Elevation
M.E.A.T.
• Movement
• Exercise
• Analgesics
• Treatment
RICE is the old school approach to injury management–just rest, elevate the injured area, ice it, and use compression on the area. While there are certain circumstances that might warrant this approach for short periods of time I’m not a fan of using this as a long-term solution. Restricting movement allows for less blood flow to the injured area and blood flow is vital to the healing process. Restricting movement also causes a loss in mobility which puts you at a higher risk of injury and sets you up for a longer recovery process now that you have to heal and work to gain back your mobility after you heal.
POLICE improves upon the RICE approach by adding in optimal loading, which involves specific movement of the injured area. But the overall approach is still primarily based on rest, with limited movement.
MEAT is the closest approach to how we recommend managing most injuries. Use general movement and specific exercises to get the area moving well. And, of course, seek medical processionals for treatment as needed, and use pain killers (analgesics) as needed. What’s missing in MEAT is compression and we are big proponents of compression to reduce inflammation, so of course non of the acronyms are perfect.
We would create our own acronyms but we don’t want the liability of that, and it’s harder than you think to create an acronym. I even used an acronym generator to make a hypothetically acronym and the results were awful. Hypothetically speaking the best result the acronym generator came up with was T.E.A.M.-C. or Treatment, Exercise, Analgesics, Movement, Compression.
Treatment by a medical professional.
Exercise the posterior muscles of your injury, which in simple terms for most cases means engaging your glutes, hamstrings, back muscles, any muscles that would improve your posture and help you stand tall.
Analgesics if needed, we would recommend anti-inflammatory analgesics but consult your doctor on this one.
Movement by means of as much pain free movement possible of the injured area. If you are dealing with a knee injury and doing heavy squats this doesn’t mean to continue to do heavy squats but rather continue with bodyweight squats, what ever the painful movement continue to the movement but with decreased volume and intensity. Or if you knee hurts from walking/running you may be able to continue to walk/run by slowing down your pace and distance. Your body will let you know if your movement is incorrect by pain, if you are experiencing pain still seek out help from a professional.
Oh and then Mobility as well, I guess I am really bad at acronyms because the second M didn’t make it in. For mobility you want to increase your range of motion in the injured area and/or the surrounding areas. Again pain is your indication, you can not increase mobility of an area that is just experience pain, in this case seek out a professional. Increasing range of motion to surrounding areas can take load off of the injured area. Example if you are experiencing knee pain it’s common to need to increase your quad and hip mobility. Tight quads and hips pull your posture forward and put more load on your knees. So without even working on your knee you can help it by working on your quads and hip flexors.
From not only our education but our experience we’ve found that, in most cases, getting moving as quickly as you possibly can will help aid in your recovery.
However, every case is a bit different. Let’s take a look.
When to Rest vs. When to Keep Moving
While a movement-based approach is generally best, some injuries will heal better with more rest, while others will heal better with immediate movement. Again consult your doctor on your injury.
Traumatic Injury–With trauma, it really depends on the severity of the injury. If it’s bad enough that you have to go see your doctor, you’ll probably need some amount of rest period, but just follow your doctor’s recommendations. If it’s less severe, you’ll likely want to take at least a few days or even a week or two to rest up. This rest period is a good time to get in some gentle movement to keep the blood flowing.
Overuse Injury–First reduce both your intensity by both volume and load, what this means is lesson the amount or distance you are doing as well as lesson the resistance or speed. If you reduce your intensity and don’t see a positive change in pain rest could be imperative. But after a few days of rest, once the affected area is feeling mostly better, that’s the time to start making regular, consistent movement a priority. This will protect you from future overuse injuries.
Repetitive Stress Injury–This type of injury happens over a long period of time, so unless there’s a specific activity that’s aggravating the area, stopping your training is probably not the answer. Instead, adding in some movements and stretches that will help you strengthen and mobilize your area of pain will yield good benefit.
Exhausted Adaptive Potential Injury–Can be caused by improper healing of a prior trauma, or by the adaptations your body made to compensate for a prior trauma. This type of injury can be quite complex and addressing it on your own might not be the best idea, especially before getting your issue checked out. Stop your regular training for now, see a doctor, and follow their recommendations.
As you can see, for most injury types, you’ll do well to keep moving (or get back to moving pretty quickly), rather than resting completely.
“But Isn’t Rest the Key to Recovery?!” Here’s My Injury Story…
I was able to fix my own pain so I could get right back out there to keep squatting.
I’ll use myself as an example.
A while back, I started a barbell squat specialization program, and seemed to develop a slight tendinitis of my sartorius, a muscle that attaches to the front of the pelvis. When I first noticed it, I only felt pain with touch. I noticed no pain in walking and only minimal pain in squatting (and this pain quickly subsided).
It was an interesting tendinitis that I’d never had before, and I believe it developed from my attempts at a change in squat technique, along with a relatively high frequency and steadily increasing poundage.
I then identified the technique issue (which was sitting back on my heels too much), which took the strain off the tendon.
This was actually a case where the injury wouldn’t benefit from a rest period. With the fix in form errors and the benefit of consistent exercise to improve blood flow to the area, I determined it was best to continue with my planned fitness program.
The improved technique performance takes care of the cause of the issue, but I still had the symptoms to manage.
Along with the icing and light exercise and stretching to the area, I also used compression and self massage techniques in other words soft tissue work.