Does it Hurt? By Michael Boyle

DOES IT HURT?

 By Michael Boyle

I get asked rehab questions all the time. I have rehabilitated athletes in almost every major sport who were told they were "all done" by a doctor or a team trainer. Because people know my background, they often ask for advice. 

Most of the time they ignore the advice because the advice does not contain the answer they want. They say, "it only hurts when I run", I say things like "don't run". 

A famous coach I know once told me “People don't call for advice, they call for agreement or consensus. If you don't tell them what they want to hear, they simply call someone else". His advice to me, don't bother wasting your time with advice.

Here I go again wasting time.

If you have an injury and are wondering whether a certain exercise is appropriate, ask yourself a simple question. "Does it hurt"? The key here is that the question 'does it hurt?" can only be answered yes or no. If you answer yes, then you are not ready for that exercise; no matter how much you like it. 

Simple, right? Not really.

 I tell everyone I speak with about rehab that any equivocation is a yes. Things like "after I warm-up it goes away" etc. are all yes answers. It is amazing to me how many times I have asked people this simple question only to have them dance around it. The reason they dance around the question is that they don't like my answer. They want to know things like "what about the magic cure that no one has told me about?". What about a secret exercise? I have another saying I like, "the secret is there is no secret". Another wise man, Ben Franklin I think, said, "Common sense is not so common". 

If you are injured and want to get better, use your common sense. Exercise should not cause pain. This seems simple but exercisers ignore pain all the time and rationalize it. Discomfort is common at the end of a set in a strength exercise or at the end of an intense cardiovascular workout. Additional discomfort, delayed onset muscle soreness, often occurs the two days following an intense session. This is normal. This discomfort should only last two days and should be limited to the muscles not the joints or tendons. 

Pain at the onset of an exercise is neither normal nor healthy and is indicative of a problem. Progression in any strength exercise should be based on a full, pain-free range of motion that produces muscle soreness without joint soreness. If you need to change or reduce range of motion, this is a problem. 

Progression in cardiovascular exercise should also be pain free and should follow the ten percent rule. Do not increase time or distance more than ten percent from one session to the next.

           I have used these simple rules in all my strength and conditioning programs and, have been able to keep literally thousands of athletes healthy. I'm sure the same concepts will help you. 

MICHAEL BOYLE

Co-Founder of Mike Boyle’s Strength and Conditioning

Michael Boyle is one of the foremost experts in the fields of Strength and Conditioning, Functional Training, and general fitness. He currently spends his time lecturing, teaching, training and writing. In 1996 Michael co-founded Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning, one of the first for-profit strength and conditioning companies in the world. Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning exists for one reason: to provide performance enhancement training for athletes of all levels. Athletes trained range from junior high school students to All Stars in almost every major professional sport.

Prior to Co- founding Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning, Michael served as the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Boston University for 15 years, also for the past 25 years he been the Strength and Conditioning Coach for Men’s Ice Hockey at Boston University. Mike also was the Boston Red Sox strength and conditioning coach in 2013 that won the World Series. In addition to his duties at Boston University and the Red Sox, from 1991-1999 Boyle served as the Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League. Michael was also the Strength and Conditioning Coach for the 1998 US Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey Team, Gold Medalists in Nagano and 2014 Silver medalists in Sochi and served as a consultant in the development of the USA Hockey National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Michael has been a featured speaker at numerous strength and conditioning and athletic training clinics across the world and has produced 20 instructional videos in strength and conditioning available through M-F Athletic. Michael has also lectured all over the world. In addition, Michael published Functional Training for Sports for Human Kinetics Publishers. Mike and his wife Cindy have 2 children, Michaela and Mark and reside in Reading.

REFERENCES

1.    https://www.bodybyboyle.com/team/co-founders#:~:text=Michael%20Boyle%20is%20one%20of,%2C%20teaching%2C%20training%20and%20writing.&text=Mike%20also%20was%20the%20Boston,that%20won%20the%20World%20Series.

2.    Michael Boyle’s Strengthcoach.com: The World’s Best Source for Strength & Conditioning Information