Back in 2021 the British Journal of Sports Medicine posted and infographic that circulated the interwebs and knocked our socks off. It’s always great when a bonafide organization pushes out something we repeat all the time.
You’ve heard us say: be careful using the word “injury” or “injured”. First, words matter – when you talk to others, and even when you talk to or about yourself.
For example: I did bench press the other day. Every time I bench press I come up a little lame in one shoulder – pain when I raise my arm overhead and pushups hurt for about a week. Honestly, I hate bench press…but occasionally I miss it so I do it. Does it hurt? Yes. Am I injured? 🙄No. Maybe there’s a little bone spur under there and every time I bench it bangs a tendon and irritates it. It remedies itself after a little while. If I thought about it as an injury I’d never do it, have negative thoughts of it every time it’s brought up and it becomes something I associate with injury – versus any potential I may get from it. That’s not a good way to look at it. I’m also more likely to feel more pain or actually sustain an injury from going into my next bench press session with those thoughts in my head!
Are we promoting exercising into and through pain? NOT AT ALL. But especially in our situation – we train seniors. Many of our athletes come to us with “things”…in fact, so many of them come in with their MRIs indicating issues that are so very common amongst an aging population. When you see “Degenerative Disc Disease” or “Stenosis” or “Narrowing” or “Osteoarthritis” on an MRI…holy cow…you think: “Not me, please no!” When in all reality, almost everyone over the age of 55 is going to show SOME signs of any of the above on an image. The question is: are you symptomatic? Sometimes yes, but more often no. And if you are symptomatic, are you certain THAT is what’s causing the symptoms? Often when Ed evaluates the image report and compares it to the symptoms, they don’t match. But because an athlete sees it in writing, they immediately assume the problem is what’s on the paper, right?
But back to the BJSM…
To us, an injury is something that we can pinpoint the mechanism of injury. For example our buddy, Carl, during double unders, felt a pop in his Achilles/ankle. This is a clear mechanism that his Achilles was injured/torn during jumping. That is a legitimate injury.
Certainly, osteoarthritis can be “stirred up” with a bout of jumping as well. And we may see swelling the next day. But we don’t consider that an injury, but rather, irritation or pain and swelling due to age- and metabolic-related degenerative changes to the cartilage of a weight-bearing joint and where beginning new activities can cause some irritation. The alternative: don’t jump. Hmmmm…we see too many positives coming from jumping to remove it from the programming. And if we removed every movement that may cause every potential athlete pain (even if from neglect of their body versus the movement), we’d have programming that looks like Silver Slippers and be about as effective. Our outcomes are amazing. We safely and systematically push loads and limits …that’s why we’re effective.
Emotionally, the word “injury” elicits a cascade of negative concerns that make our jobs even harder. Often the injury is easy to deal with …..the fear of injury or the repeating of “I’m injured” might as well sign the cancellation of an athlete’s membership because the coaches will NEVER be successful if their athletes are fearing injury all the time. NOW the goal is “don’t get hurt” versus “get stronger, faster, better…”. That mentality belongs with Silver Slippers.
Sports-related pain…now we see a lot of this, but not necessarily due to the training, but because most of our population comes in after having been very sedentary – or worse – still sedentary on the 4 days a week we DON’T see them.
Beginning to move joints and muscles that have previously been immobile, with limited range of motion, and with assistance getting up and down is tricky. We COULD go REALLY slowly, inch ourselves forward, start with 1# weights…but at the age of our athletes, we’ll get them strong enough and fit enough around the time of their funeral. Joking, but serious here. Plus, our senior population tends to underestimate their ability and left to choose for themselves, will often never progress because they won’t create the loaded stimulus they need to truly get stronger and make progress. It’s really hard to push ourselves! So we EXPECT some joint capsules to get stretched and become irritated due to prior lack of motion. We expect muscles to be sore. We expect an occasional tendonitis…again…due to training neglected bodies.
Do we take this lightly? No. Do we make fun of sore muscles – sure! But in jest. We have an animated and high-energy environment. It helps us keep our athletes moving, because almost 100% of the time, they’ll come in sore, and leave feeling great. That’s the goal. It’s hard to get started after having done …nothing. And helping to differentiate between sports-related injury versus sports-related pain is important.
Words matter. “I’m injured” versus “I’m sore” or “I’ve got an irritation”…better lay off for a few days. The latter two are going to keep you in the game. “I’m injured” will keep you on the sidelines while your potential fades away. We always have our athletes’ backs…but our jobs are also motivating versus pandering. All of our athletes have arthritis, which can cause other problems. Many of our athletes have partially torn tendons which can happen from aging and time (fraying). Moving well, getting stronger, and improving your general health and fitness will help lower pain levels and make life better in so many ways.
Our jobs as coaches are also to redirect energies away from what our athletes may not be able to do, onto what they CAN do. If we have an irritation, we can either sub the movement while still preserving the stimulus…or change the movement altogether if that’s not possible. Win, win!
This is both educational and motivational. WE are our own best cheerleaders. “I can!” That’s always a win. And “I’ll try” produces even more praise from us as trying yields results.
Some pain often accompanies our later years, especially if disuse and neglect of movement and strength are present. If we accept that and have a team of educated people surrounding us to lift us up, validate issues of concern, and work around or through them, we all win!