Healing Hurts

If you’ve been to physical therapy for a chronic injury, you’re well aware that healing is pain. There’s typically much more to ridding a nagging injury than receiving a pleasurable massage.

Damaged tendons and ligaments are especially stubborn. Healing them is a game of months, not weeks.

I had a hamstring tendinopathy that lingered for months, and no amount of light exercise or massage would have any noticeable effect. It wasn’t until I focused on a spot-specific isometric hold, and performed multiple sets of 30 seconds, twice a day, that the hamstring started to get better. It’s difficult to get blood flowing through tendons, which is why it’s difficult to stimulate new cell growth.

I now know that isometric holds are the key to healing tendons. An isometric hold is a muscle contraction held in a fixed position and in one place, often against some sort of resistance. For example, if you were to use a leg extension machine in a weightroom and push to full leg extension, then hold that extended position, you would be engaged in an isometric hold. A wall sit could also be an isometric hold.

The isometric hold that helped my hamstring was challenging as hell, but I figured a few minutes of hell each day is better than a lifetime of possessing a bad hamstring.

After the hamstring recovered, I found myself wondering how many chronic injuries in the world would have healed, had hustle culture allotted more time for those afflicted. Who has the time to perform physical therapy exercises each day, in addition to routine exercise, work, and the daily obligations of adulting? Better yet, who really wants to when there are so many other lingering stressors dancing around in the mind? I suspect injured tendons often don’t heal for this reason. Instead, damaged tendons often steadily degrade until they eventually die.

Healing hurts, and similarly, I’ve noticed that once you’ve passed a life apex, maintaining the status quo hurts. Use it or lose it, the saying goes. This applies to both the body and mind.

If you don’t give your mind new stimulus and strain in the form of challanges, it eventually gives way, like a damaged tendon. Maybe we should treat our minds like a tendon in physical therapy,

So a good life requires pain, ironically, and to some extent, pain should be embraced.

Affirmations

Yesterday I had my first visit with a Physical Therapist for my foot injury. After an examination I was told what I expected to hear, which is that the plantar fascia on my left foot is messed up.

“You can really feel the scar tissue and adhesions there. It’s no surprise you’re in a lot of pain.”

“That’s good news,” I said. “If all the problems are in one place, I know what to work on.”

About two weeks ago, in a bout of pain and frustration, I ditched all of my cushioned shoes and replaced them with more minimalist, wide toe box shoes. This seems counterintuitive for someone in pain just from walking, but I have my reasons, and desperate times call for drastic measures. I believe in acting swiftly and severely.

I had been wearing heavily cushioned shoes with elevated heels as daily wear for awhile, thinking it would keep my feet comfy outside of distance runs. My theory is that this has something to do with the injury. Simply put, a tendon became too weak to sustain what I was doing to it, and worse yet, there wasn’t enough blood flowing to the area to heal it. So, I’m seeking natural foot strength. Time will tell if my theory is correct.

I woke up this morning and spent a few minutes rolling my foot on a heated vibrating roller sphere. Then I massaged it with an arch massager I got from Alleviate. I put on some toe spacers and spent an hour on the elliptical, then did a series of calf raise exercises and stretches. I’m wearing the toe spacers for most of the day, every day, to help promote blood flow to the plantar fascia.

I’m preparing revenge.

Playing over and over in my mind is what someone told me after this injury: “You’re injury prone. You need to be put in a bubble.” Those mocking words anger me beyond anything I’ve ever felt, and I used to be a very pissed off competitor!

For the last few weeks I have been repeating to myself, “They think you’re frail. They think you can’t do what you’re doing. Prove them wrong.” It’s the first thing I think when I wake up and the last thing I think when I go to bed.

It seems like the best way to really prove them wrong is to become the most durable fucking specimen they’ve ever heard of.

I promised the PT I wouldn’t run until walking felt somewhat comfortable. I’m not there yet, but I do believe the plantar is getting there.

I buried the “Manimal,” my old college athlete persona that my teammates called me, about 16 years ago because I didn’t think that persona was healthy beyond NCAA swimming. Leave it to some asshole to resurrect him! This time I think that side of me is here to stay. It isn’t the side of me that forgives or lets weak ass office comments slide!