I have dealt with back pain for over 20 years.
It started again in the high school – the recording for a football game, everything felt good … and then *snap *, my back. I had no idea what had happened. I only knew: it hurt, I could hardly move and I was afraid.
This moment started a lifelong journey of learning to fitness, mobility, injury prevention – and also learning how to do it get over If you realize that not everything is in your control.
I learned how to train better. I ate a nutritious diet. I prioritized my sleep and regularly kept pace with the correction exercises required by my doctors and physiotherapists. But even though I made “everything right” all for 6 to 24 months, I would be hit with a serious back flicker. Sometimes it took a few days. Sometimes I rose with it for years.
The last one was the worst.
I spent months in a literal C-shape. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t move as I wanted. And it was more than physical pain spiritual spiral That brought me.
“Will I get stuck?”
“How long will it take time?”
“Who am I at all if I can’t move or teach or can train as before?”
It messed up my identity in a way that I was not entirely aware of at the beginning.
I am the trainer. The trainer. The guy who teaches others, how to move well. I am the father who wrestles on the floor with his children. Who takes care of physical work in our house.
Now I worked out of bed and asked if I would ever feel “normal” again.
After all, I got pain out (not everyone does it). And it taught me some valuable lessons.
What I learned:
✅ Play the hand you treated.
It turns out that I have a congenital spine stenosis (a narrowing of the spine canal). I didn’t cause it. I can’t “repair” it. But I can build a plan for it. Physiotherapy and strength training are much the same! In its simplest form, it is a version of “exposure therapy”. Load your body just enough and in the right way to get the desired reaction. Not too much, not too little.
Over time, I have learned the movements that are more likely to cause a flare. And I can organize my training to build a larger “buffer” of strength and mobility in this area.
It is not what I would have chosen for myself. But it’s the best way I know how to react.
✅ The recovery is as mental as it is physically.
Do not write the mental and emotional tribute that an injury relates to you or a loved one. You can do all “right things” and still have the feeling that you are not making progress if your brain is flooded with pain, fear, frustration or shame. You may not even recognize the effects it has on you! Me often felt As if I were going to handle everything great. But my loved ones could see that mental stress (let alone the physical pain) introduced me against me.
I learned this sentence from a mentor of myself, and he still finds me with me. “Start where you are. Do what you can do. Use what you have.” It is much easier to say than done, but the right of this attitude helped me in some of my darkest moments.
✅ Movement is still worth fighting.
Even if it takes months. Even if it is slower than I want. Even if movement doesn’t look like before. It is still worth working on it.
The intellectual and physical advantages of movement, in any Form I can do it, are too powerful to ignore.
✅ The same solution does not work every time.
This was one of the most difficult to learn. There was no solution to my pain.
- Sometimes heat helped. Sometimes it didn’t.
- Sometimes an exercise felt great. Sometimes it felt terrible.
- Sometimes anti -inflammatory oral steroids helped. Sometimes they didn’t.
As a result, I learned to approach every new flare like an experiment. To take what I could do as a small test every day. And this is the same approach that we have learned with our own customers – even those who do not deal with an injury or a chronic state. What has worked for you in the past can give us clues, but maybe it is not the best current Solution for what you need.
This made me a better trainer.
I understand now –Really Understand – how people feel with chronic pain or injuries.
The fear, doubts, grief, part of what makes you You.
This perspective made me more sensitive, flexible and helpful – and I tried to pass on our entire coaching staff here at Nerd Fitness.
If you have to do with pain, setbacks or feel that the body has cheated on you lately, I see it.
It can take longer than you want.
It could look different than before.
But you can now build up strength, self -confidence and swing now.
And if you ever need help to find out how you do it in a way that fits your body, history and reality? I would like to help.
Just shoot me a message.
– Trainer Matt
