Have you ever awakened with a pain that you didn’t have when you went to sleep?

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I must have slept wrong?” (I don’t know what it means to sleep wrong. If I can’t even sleep “right,” then I think I might have trouble doing anything correctly.)

Have you been unable to identify what caused your pain to come on?

If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, then you are not alone.

Most people have a time in their life when they have pain or limitation that seemed to “come out of the blue.” There seems to be no identifiable cause to the new limitation.

But with the proper information and a little dose of hindsight, you might be able to see that you have been glossing over your problem for a long time.

“We’re all okay, until the day we’re not.

The surface shines, while the inside rots.”

–Rise Against from the song Audience of One

If you have read any of my other blogs, you already know that I’m going to use an automotive analogy. Hopefully this one helps you to see what is really going on with your “out of the blue” pain/limitation.

Have you ever heard that ugly screeching when you back your car out of a parking spot? It only seems to happen after it rains, so it must have to do with the brakes being wet, right?

Then the screeching starts to happens on dry days. So now you begin to think “Maybe I should get that checked.” Except that as you drive along the rest of the trip, there is no more screeching, so it falls off your radar of potential problems. Until it rains again…and then screeches again.

By now, I would assume that you have caught on to what is happening with your car…it’s the brakes squealing. That is a built-in mechanism to warn you that the brake pads are getting to the end of their service life.

But sometimes the screeching stops and doesn’t come back. That’s because the little metal tab that is designed to make that fingernails-on-the-chalkboard screeching sound has now broken off. Now you have no more reminder that your brakes are in bad shape. So you can drive on in ignorant bliss…for a time.

But then an even worse grinding noise appears whenever you approach a stoplight. “Ooops, I forgot about that brake noise from 6-months ago.”

The “worn-out-brakes” analogy is helpful on several fronts and can be extrapolated to how your body works.

1- Brakes begin showing signs of wear the first day that they are installed. At first, the wear isn’t too noticeable, and in fact helps the brakes to function better. This is called the “break-in” period for the brakes.

With your body, when you start a new activity, you go through a “break-in” period as well. This is what we refer to as “post-workout soreness” that is so common at the beginning of any new workout. You know it. It’s the muscle soreness when climbing stairs the day after doing squats for the first time. And it feels good! It’s good to know that you have gotten something out of your workout.

2- Brakes continue to gradually wear as you drive your car, but usually at a very slow rate…like over 40,000 miles of driving. This can lull you into forgetting about the brakes and just how important they are to the health of your car…and you!

With your body, as you continue the new activity, workout, or sport, you get really good at it. It gets easier and you forget that you had to work really hard to get through that first workout. As you have been working out, you have been adapting and getting stronger…at least that’s what you hope. So now you are doing heavy weight squats to keep getting stronger.

3- Brake systems are designed to give us fair warning as they reach the end of useful service. The screeching is designed into the brake pad to give you an auditory stimulus to remind you about the health of your brakes. If that stimulus fails, the brake light on your dashboard will also give you a heads up, as the brake fluid drops lower because of the worn brake pads. It’s a redundancy in the system. The car manufacturers want you to be safe while operating the car, so that safety is designed into the car. But what if you ignore the signs?

With your body, as you increase weights on your squats, you see that your legs are shaping up nicely and the muscles are more defined. It’s a win-win, you are stronger and leaner. But now your knees are talking to you when climb stairs like when you started doing squats. But wait, is this soreness the same? Was it your knees…or was it your thigh muscles that were talking to you when you started your squatting?

4- If you ignore the warning signs, you could have a much larger repair coming. So as you have continued to drive with the badly screeching noise, the brakes have begun cutting into the brake rotor. When you take your car in to the mechanic he says, “Did you hear any screeching a while ago?” You sheepishly admit to hearing the noise. “I wish you had brought the car in then. It would have been a simple job of replacing the brake pads, but now we have to replace the rotors as well,” the mechanic informs you. “I’m sorry, but that will double to price of the repair.”

With your body, as you have kept pushing the limits on your squats, your wake up one morning with your knees being painful, but it gets better the next day. Only to have the pain return the following morning. This goes “off and on” for several weeks. So you go to see the doctor. “When did this start?” the doctor asks. You sheepishly admit that it has been a while…or maybe you say it with pride because it shows that you are tough enough to work through a little pain. “I wish you had come in earlier. It could have been as simple as resting for a week or two, but now you have to consider more involved options, like injections, physical therapy, or maybe surgery.”

Hopefully that wearing-out-brakes analogy has helped you to see that your body has early warning systems for you to protect from further damage to or failure of your body.

At some point in your life, you will wake with pain that seems out-of-the-blue. Take a moment to consider what stresses you have been putting on yourself.

Listen to the information that your body gives and make decisions based on that. Don’t just “shine the surface, while your inside rots.”

If you have questions about a change in your function or pain, we can help you make a decision on how to proceed with your activity in the safest way possible. Find us at www.lifestrenghtpt.com.