The Best Lesson You Can Learn to Protect your Athletic Career

“Listen to your body.”

If I had a dime for every time I told one of my clients this phrase, I would be set for life. Okay, maybe it would have to be a quarter, but still, I’m pretty sure this phrase comes out of my mouth more than any other.

As athletes, we are taught more is better. One more rep. One more sprint. One more workout. This mindset is great for developing the mental toughness needed to compete at a high level. The problem is, sometimes our bodies don’t agree with that philosophy.

That one more rep, set, or workout ends up being the “one more” that screws us over. We finish that last rep, and get a weird sharp pain in our knee, but we assume that we probably just tweaked something. So we shake it off.

We go home and notice that knee is a little swollen, and is aching now, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. We might throw some ice on it and pop some ibuprofen, which makes it feel a little better, so we assume we’re okay.

The next day, it’s stiff and achy, and is still a little swollen, but it’s not terrible, so we complete our workout anyway. We notice that ache gets a little worse, but we’re still okay. We continue on like this for a few weeks and notice that pain seems to be getting a little worse everyday.

But still, we soldier on.

After months of this, the pain gets too bad for us to be able to lift or run anymore.

Finally, we admit that we have a problem.

This mindset is one that we have all had at some point or another in our athletic career. Unfortunately, it is also one that can have long-term consequences on our health. That “tweaked knee” can turn into a major meniscal tear, that then turns into a surgery, then a chronically “bad knee” and eventually “bone-on-bone” arthritis that leads to a total knee replacement.

There is a solution for this. If we learn to “listen to our body” and seek help at the first sign of that pain, we can fix what originally caused the injury and avoid months or years of unnecessary pain and tissue damage. This is where Peak Performance comes in.

We offer physical therapy services for those who have an injury in need of rehabilitation, but we also offer Movement Performance Assessments, as well as Performance Coaching and Custom Programming for those who want to be proactive and try to address any issues that could increase the risk of injury.

Let us help you.