The blessings of injuries...

The title to this blog might seem a little counter-intuitive so let me explain.

In the entrance of my girlfriends house there is a hanging frame that reads,

"Don't think of the things you didn't get after praying. Think of the countless blessings God gave you without asking."

We tend to take things for granted. Simple things, little things, things others do for us, things we are capable of, things we expect from others, and things we expect from our own body...

Until something breaks (literally or metaphorically)

Broken things get noticed... you can walk by a window in your house a million times without really noticing it. Walk by that window during a Buffalo winter after putting a football through it, I bet you notice it...like an injury. We ignore all the signs of overuse and poor or faulty movement patterns, until we get hurt. We don't really care about all the steps we take on a daily basis, unless you have a ruptured Achilles tendon, then we pay attention. Americans have an absolutely ridiculous high incidence rate of lower back pain, what were we doing before we hurt? How many body awareness cues were ignored before people became hospitalized and prescribed pain meds?

Why can't being pain free and mobile become an aspiration to MAINTAIN, rather than an abnormality we strive to reclaim?

From a fitness standpoint we take for granted what our bodies are actually capable of. We gravitate to the exercises we enjoy and can complete with confidence. We disassociate with the exercises that are difficult and can cause frustration. "If I don't have injuries currently why should I train differently," people ask? "Why do boring exercises when we can be doing fun stuff?"..."why exercise at all actually when we can be out having fun?"

I GET IT!!! Training to avoid getting injured isn't fun or sexy...but it beats getting injured! We will never have to strong of a core stabilization  system.  Our balance can always improve and will need constant challenging.  Programming the basics and focusing on the foundations of fitness will never be the wrong move in training and planning sessions for clients or yourself.  Focus of core strength and stability, improve mobility and flexibility, dedicate time for balance, work to improve on coordination.    

What if we listened to our bodies and adapted our training modules before injuries occurred?

What if we fine tuned the details of training so that we produced even greater results?

What if we became so acutely aware of how our body operates and we never worried about pain?

What if we paid attention to details that have been ignored because of success?

What if we were forced to step back and take time off?
What if we learned from injuries?
What if we just did what was right?

The value and blessing of being injured is it gives you time to reflect on all those questions. Without any doubt or argument you got hurt for a reason...there HAS TO BE A SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION...let's figure it out and correct it.

VALUE OF INJURIES... FEEDBACK
VALUE OF FAILURE... KNOWLEDGE
VALUE OF FATIGUE... EXPERIENCE
VALUE OF PAIN... GROWTH
VALUE OF CRITICISM... HUMILITY