One issue I am currently deliberating is the question of when to push yourself to new lengths and when to listen to your body. When exactly does pain cross over into injury? This is an extremely tricky issue and one that I haven't yet nailed down. I have always subscribed to the idea that,

"excuses are like assholes: everybody's got 'em and they all stink"

(high school football coaches everywhere)

Okay, so no excuses. But sometimes you ARE truly injured...Unfortunately, injury has been a significant part of my journey. So you see my dilemma. Now, where to begin?

We could start by defining "injury". Oxford languages suggests,

"1. an instance of being injured"

and much more laughably,

"2. damage to a person's feelings"

Now, obviously the first one is in reference to a definition for "injured" so here's that from Oxford:

"harmed, damaged, or impaired."

That really doesn't do us much good either...we could look up the definition for each of those three words and likely get closer to a funtional definition, but for the sake of your attention span and because you undoubtedly have a decent grasp on the meaning of each of those three words, I will go ahead and provide you with mine.

Injury: damage to or pain experienced somewhere in the body that worsens with or restricts continued use and movement.

Something like that. A definition like that at least somewhat informs behavior. For example, if something hurts while running I will push through it at least once, allot for a small rest period, and try stretching the area before my next run. If it still hurts on a second run, I would do some exploratory repetitions, trying to really locate the pain to improve my ability to stretch or do myofascial release (next I might try a different pair of shoes, because if you're running in old shoes that may very well be the culprit...I'm rambling). Ultimately, the point is that I get as creative as possible in my attempts to remedy before concluding injury. And only if continued activity makes the problem worse do I draw the logical conclusion that prolonged rest is likely necessary.

There is another complicating element to injury: the mental element. Once you're at the point where the logical conclusion is prolonged rest, you can be certain that the injury in question has also taken a significant toll on your psyche. In my experience, fear creeps in and starts convincing me to take it easy and avoid injury. This is helpful at first...but it isn't always easy to shake that mentality once you've physically recovered. Here is a specific example from my own training:

I have lower back issues. Huge pain in my ass - pun intended. At some point there will be a whole post about this but for the time being as an anecdote I will keep it brief. So I have tried just about everything under the sun to remedy that. The last time it flared up on me I found a quad stretch that seemed to work and that was great...for a while. Then, I found another stretch that worked better...for a while. But the target kept moving and I kept trying new things that would give me relief until I got to a point where I ran out of ideas and my back just plain hurt. All the time.

It was all I could think about. Every little discomfort registered loud in my head, because I was so hyper-focused on the injury. I began to grow weary of my mental state surrounding the issue. I theorized that perhaps all of my constant efforts to remedy were actually contributing to the problem. And that my hyper-attentiveness to the area was creating a discomfort bias. I stopped all of the manic stretching, shifted my mindset, and the next day I just went for it. I ran and lifted hard as shit. My back felt fine. I later learned that my mental state was entirely to blame for the perpetuation of the issue.

It is difficult to know when this might be the case. I still don't have the answer, and I will surely have more to explore in regards to injury as the blog progresses, but I think this serves as a good introduction.