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Old 05-27-2009, 04:22 PM   #5
lbb
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,202
United_States
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Re: Knees & Shoulder Pain

Quote:
Ashley Carter wrote: View Post
Do you know where I can get these?
If I had 'em, I'd be taking 'em myself.

There's a saying in the world of outdoor leadership that goes like this:

Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.


In other words, how do you learn not to get lost? By getting lost, that's how...by getting a little bit lost, not fatally so, but enough to recognize the mistakes that you made. How do you keep from getting hypothermia? By getting chilled and learning that no, a sweaty cotton t-shirt really is not going to cut it when the sun goes down and the wind comes up. And how do you learn not to do stupid things when you've been injured? By getting injured and screwing up your recovery.

People tend to not learn well, at least not certain kinds of things, without some negative feedback. Unfortunately, injury is like that. Those of us who are skilled at managing injuries now, got those skills by messing up and paying the price. So we end up in these pointless dialogues:

Q: I hurt my shoulder/busted my collarbone/sprained my ankle. When can I start training again?

A: There is no exact formula that will tell you when you can resume training; when I hurt my shoulder/busted my collarbone/sprained my ankle, it was x weeks. Your mileage may and probably will vary. Consult your doctor and don't rush it.

Q: Yeah, but but but, when can I get on the mat??? It's been a whole day and a half and I'm going crazy!

...at which point I'm always tempted to say, "Okay, then do it your way," because what else can you say? You just answered the question; the person didn't like the answer, and now they're fishing for a different answer. This is like people who shop for a diagnosis until they get the one they want. Well, they can't help it -- everyone wants the truth to be different than what it is, which is that you can't know exactly how long it will take you to recover, or even if you will recover completely (because with most serious orthopedic injuries, things are never just as they were before), and you can't know exactly what are the things to do to best ensure healing. Nobody likes that uncertainty, but dealing with it is just the drill if you want to give yourself your best shot at recovery.
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