pain – Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

Stiff Neck

September is Pain Awareness Month. And, sadly, a fifth of us are dealing with chronic pain. Often pain can make us afraid to move. We don’t know what we should do. We worry about making it worse. But research shows movement is almost always the better option. Lack of movement tends to create more pain.

The exception would be an acute injury. If you got in a car accident and got whiplash yesterday, you would want to talk with your doctor before moving. But even after many surgeries, doctors have patients up and moving the same day. Our body needs movement the way it needs food and water.

Let’s consider the common problem of a stiff neck from when you’ve slept “wrong.” Your range of motion is likely restricted. So here are some steps to take:
1) Do an assessment. 2) Add micromovements. 3) If that feels okay, add some gentle stretches.

First you are going to nod your head up and down like you are saying “Yes” about 5 times, and then turn left and right like you are saying “No.” Force nothing. Notice what your range of motion is and the moment you […]

Stiff NeckMaggie Downie2024-09-20T11:52:32-04:00

The No Pain, No Gain Fallacy

We’ve all heard the phrase, No Pain, No Gain in relation to exercises. It’s a popular expression but it is not true. Actually, it’s potentially harmful.

When we think No Pain, No Gain in terms of exercise we tend to think that either our workout should be grueling, or we should be sore the day or two afterward. If we aren’t then we presume we haven’t done enough. The problem is working out and pushing through pain increases our risk of injury. Once we are injured our whole workout plan can be derailed. Plus the Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) we feel 24-48 hours after a workout isn’t practical or functional. We are more likely to get injured then because we have to alter the way we naturally move to work around how sore we are.

While you can choose to only do an upper body workout every other day, you can’t not use half your body for a whole day. We need our arms to pick up our children, reach for something off the top shelf, and open the refrigerator. We need our legs to go upstairs, get in and out of […]

The No Pain, No Gain FallacyMaggie Downie2021-10-15T16:20:14-04:00

Lunge Form: How to do a lunge properly

Often people are afraid to do lunges or squats. They think those moves hurt their knees—either their experience is that it hurts the knees when they do them or they have been told those moves are bad for knees. The only problem with that is that in order to move throughout our day we need to be able to do a lunge and a squat. It’s not the lunge that is the problem. It is the lunge form.

Lunges enable us to get up and down off the floor. Squats get us on the toilet. A cross between a lunge and a squat enables us to get into the car. These are movements our body is doing whether we fear them or not. How do we resolve the question of whether or not we should be doing lunges? The answer: Learn how to do a lunge properly without hurting the knee.

Proper Lunge Form Tips

The video below will demonstrate and talk you though how to do a lunge safely, but before you start, here are some key factors to consider:

What […]

Lunge Form: How to do a lunge properlyMaggie Downie2019-05-10T14:13:27-04:00

What to do for a sprained foot?

No injury or person is identical. So anytime we have an injury, we need to treat it uniquely. That being said, there are some general tools that can help. This post will offer some tools to get started if you ever sprain your foot. A sprain is a stretching or tearing of a ligament. A strain is a stretching or tearing of a muscle or a tendon. But it is always recommended that you talk to your doctor. You want to make sure you are dealing with a sprain and not something else.

Tools for Healing

• Experiment with ice or heat. Ice will help reduce inflammation, but heat will help bring blood to the area, which will promote healing. If one seems to cause aggravation, try the other. I’m a lover of ice—the sooner the better and multiple times throughout the day.

• Massage the area. Immediately upon spraining something, a specific area may be tender to the touch. Do not feel like you have to rub that area, but try to massage as close the area in pain as possible without causing pain. You can rub the sole of the foot or the ankle. Never create pain, but rub what you […]

What to do for a sprained foot?Maggie Downie2018-11-07T10:32:45-05:00

Wrist Pain When Exercising

If your writs don’t hurt you may take for granted how much they are supporting you on an exercise like sidebends.

Our fingers do not have any muscles. They move like puppets on a string via tendons connected to the muscles of the hand and forearm. That means we need flexible, strong, mobile wrists so that our fingers can maintain all their movements. The opposable thumbs we love so much would be less useful without a tendon running off a muscle down through our wrist. Whether our wrists are tight or weak, it can cause wrist pain when we do exercises that rely on the wrists. This includes plank, push-ups, tricep dips, holding weights, or supporting your body weight in any way. If the wrists are getting in the way, it can drastically limit our upper body work.

Injuries or carpel tunnel make people think of their wrists, but otherwise, unlike six pack abs, most people are not looking to tone their wrists. This becomes a problem if you go to do an exercise and your wrists get in the way because they are weak or feel strained when you put your […]

Wrist Pain When ExercisingMaggie Downie2018-03-21T15:42:56-04:00