Stop Light Injury Philosophy
AT ROI, we are primarily working with adults that have plenty of “wear on the tires” from a life well lived. Whether it is a continuation from some old athletic injuries back in high school or some chronic aches and pains from beating up your body over the years, we’ve all got some stuff that pops up from time to time. Nothing derails progress in the gym more quickly and forcefully than dealing with an injury.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that gaining strength and improving mobility through consistent exercise is the best thing that you can do for your body - especially when you are dealing with an injury or pain. However, figuring out what to do, when to do it, and how much of it to do can be a frustrating endeavor.
Doing nothing and avoiding exercise all together to not “poke the bear” is a rather indifferent approach that will undoubtedly yield subpar results. Likewise, going all or nothing and adopting the “no pain, no gain” mindset will lead you down the circuitous path of 1 step forward 2 steps back.
You may have gone to your physician or any other medical provider and they hit you with the “just don’t do anything that hurts” adage. While there is a grain of truth to that message and context is king, there is a lot of low hanging fruit that can be picked to make dealing with an injury while on your fitness journey a much more efficient and enjoyable process.
Motion is lotion and stronger things are harder to break. But, how do you figure out what is best to do? How do you determine how often you should do it? And, how do you even know if you are doing it right?
We like to use a stoplight metaphor when prescribing exercises and determining the appropriate doses for them.
“Red Light” movements are those that actively provoke pain while you are doing them. If pressing a barbell overhead aggravates your shoulder and we ensure that you are performing it correctly and are using an appropriate weight - we would label that as a Red Light exercise at that time. Scratching a wound with sandpaper is a surefire way to make sure that it never heals. Similarly, if we don’t allow an injured or painful area to rest and heal, the likelihood is that pain and problems will persist for far longer than they need to.
“Yellow Light” movements are those that can provoke pain if you are going too heavy, moving too fast, or doing too many. While we don’t want to remove these exercises from your trainable menu, we need to make sure that we intelligently program them and progressively overload them as tolerated. A lot of movements in this category may not cause problems while doing them, but could show up in 24 - 72 hours afterwards (beyond the normal post workout muscle soreness).
“Green Light” movements are exercises that don’t bother any injury or pain that you are dealing with at all. These are the “let’s get after it,” movements that allow you to get a little sweaty and put the hammer down. This is where we can work around an injury as opposed to work through an injury. If you have some body composition or performance related goals, we can work towards those with these movements without fear of aggravating your injury.
These categories are not stagnant and we are constantly trying to keep as many exercises in the Green Light bucket as possible. So, while we may stay away from a given exercise for a period of time or modify it to an alternative, that doesn’t mean you won’t ever be able to do it again. The goal should be to walk out of the gym feeling better than when you walked in it. Letting things heal up, intelligently progressing things that will make you stronger and more mobile, and being able to get sweaty with movements that you know won’t set you back is the name of the game.
Doing nothing or constantly gritting your teeth through pain are frustrating approaches that will, for completely different reasons, yield similar and undesirable results.
