I have three goals presently and the top one is to be pain free. I used to think it was an impossible dream, but there are bright spots in my day where I catch myself saying "Holy sh!t I feel good." That has not happened in decades. So, I'm going to be greedy.
In my quest, I have been seeing my physical therapist regularly. We have been trying to untangle this mess of overly bound up knotted soft tissue which is my body. My entire back used to be like working on one tough piece of gristled meat. Now I am beginning to feel the different separations and nuances of the individual muscles and working parts.
One thing I spoke about not long ago was the concept of melting while stretching and rolling. Even with that, I still catch myself trying to push beyond the pain threshold. I often wondered if I do that as a result of ALWAYS pushing past the point of pain in training.
I think most of us who torture our bodies have some masochist in us. In a weird way I think I might be used to the pain. Maybe I even like it a little. What I do know is by pushing past the point of pain I was able to accomplish a fair amount over my competitive lifting years.
Well, after trying for the last decade, I can tell you all this for certain, you cannot push past the pain when rehabbing your body. Leaning into the pain is counterproductive. Since coming to this conclusion the results in my rehab have been astonishing.
In particular with my stretching and soft tissue work. When I would just start to touch the point of discomfort I started backing off. Now I am learning how to just get to the edge before ever feeling that discomfort and my recovery is moving along that much faster.
I guess it's kind of like ripping off a scab. You think, oh, it's already hanging off a bit, it will be fine. Then you rip it off just to leave it bloody and stinging. Now you have to wait for it to scab up and start the healing process all over again.
The moral of the story is, don't push your rehab like you do your training. Treat your body like Sade and be a Smooth Operator. And if you get that reference, you are definitely old.
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