Muscle Strain and Recovery
We talk about how Michael’s brother experienced a pectoral muscle strain. A true muscle injury as we show causes a huge amount of bruising and swelling too. Muscles can cause you a problem by cramping if you’re not drinking enough or being stiff from time to time but this is not an injury. The muscle may be making the pain worse, it might go into contraction but it’s a natural reaction to another problem.
Too many of us spend too much time sitting down and not getting enough activity throughout the day. Doing the wrong exercises isn’t helpful as it can make existing back issues worse without you realising. When you have a muscle strain would you still use the ice for just 5 mins at a time or would you use it for longer to reduce the swelling? With a back problem you should just do for 5 minutes at a time. If it’s a sport injury, jumping into excessive icing may not be what’s wholly recommended.
Should you reduce load after you’ve injured a muscle and continue exercising? How long before you can return to normal activity? Getting some load is good but you just need to be careful. Nothing excessive!
If the injury only occurs on one side should we be doing single limb exercises to balance out any imbalances? Don’t just focus on one side, work symmetrically if you can rather than focusing on one side