JONGSON PARK

If I’d ever overwork my running, I was always in danger of pulling my hamstrings. Especially doing full sprints, long-strides and opening up my hamstrings. I realize now, if I continue doing sprints during a workout, I can sense my hamstrings fatiguing, which back then I never payed attention to. Like a game of flinch, pushing the limit to see who gives first. Which, if you think about it, my hamstrings will always lose – it will just keep trying to go until it snaps or I tell it to stop. But you know, “no pain, no gain” right?

But as I’ve continued on this sprint workout journey, there were so many pain and injuries I’d ignore. Feet pain, plantar fasciitis, achilles tendonitis, calf strains, knee tendonitis, sore IT band, sciatica, lower back… all low-key pain that I could tolerate, use some kind of recovery technique to get me back ready the next time. But what if I told you I got rid of all these injuries and low-key pain, to point my body feels and recovers like it did when I was 12.

Is there an injury you are constantly running into? You’ll do an activity or workout, you might go a little harder than usually, push past the point of fatigue and the injury pops back up. Or are you tolerating a dull, lingering pain just to endure another workout? Are you nursing or compensating a movement cause you’re working around an injury. You should stop and start listening to your body. Pain is your body’s way of telling you something is not right. Duh.

Everyone has a different threshold of pain, I think in our culture we’ve glamorized or valued the idea of working through pain. Like Michael Jordan playing through the flu, maybe even Brett Favre playing after his father passed away or maybe it’s overcoming a circumstance, accident or setback. Or how about work, like never taking a sick day. America especially emphasizes the value of hard work – the farmers, laborers and military people this country was built on, can never have an “off day”.

So we take this mindset into the gym, working out, competitions and sports. That we’re not actually making progress, improvements or winning if it’s not “painful”. Ouch. That hurts. And we can take pain to mean different things. It could be actual physical pain, emotional pain, but we could also mean how difficult the will-power or discipline can be or maybe how painful the failure, risk or aftermath.

But let’s talk about it in the context of injuries and working out or playing through pain. So I see people running or working out through injury, because they think it’s being “tough” or the pain is just something they have to deal with and overcome psychologically, through will-power or some kind of disassociation. But pain is really our body’s way of telling us something is not right, and it’s usually bio-mechanically – our movements are not efficient or optimized and creating stress points, limited end-range ability, weakness through under-activation, shortness of muscles and compensation. So if you turn off the pain receptors telling you to adjust, fix or repair what’s wrong you’ll dull your body awareness, keep repeating the same mistakes and grind your injury into a worn-down nub.

Being aware and sensitive to your injuries sounds like not doing anything for a couple weeks. No, that’s not the remedy. Activity, activation is the remedy but being aware of how your body is responding so that you don’t get into a full blown injury. Chances are before you actually have your injury, your body has been already telling you there’s a yellow or orange flag in this area. There’s something wrong here but we shut off that sensory so that we can keep pushing through it. Because, you know… that’s the solution to everything.

For example, you started running but when did you start having to wear the knee brace, buy better shoes, get the foam roller or massage gun, feel like you’re not stretching enough, take the Motrin, ice packs, heat packs, salt baths, start going to the chiropractor or physical therapist… all these sound like very reasonable responses to working out and don’t seem like any indications of anything serious or implication for injuries. But what if I told you if you have proper mechanics, good end-range ability, stayed within range of your maximum ability, are able to have full activation and length in your muscles you should never need any of those things to help you “recover”.

Spriint Fit is not about seeing how tough you are, proving to yourself or others how much pain you can endure, or how many injuries you can get over. Spriint Fit is about avoiding injuries, building a bulletproof foundation by having acute, sensitive awareness of your body, sharpening your mind-body connection, being open and humble so you can make adjustments, make regressions, concessions, accepting where your body is at this state and time. Making the adjustments to strengthen the weaknesses and build a strong foundation with a Progression Mindset. Don’t ignore lingering pain and trying to grind through injuries.