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The number one question I get at Atlanta Sports Recovery is, “why did is this injury/pain happen.”

 

Over the last four years and 1,000+ cases, we have tracked the root cause of every issue that has come through the doors of ASR and been able to link them to one of five primary reasons. This week, I am presenting them using a car analogy to help anyone getting this in their inbox better understand how their meat wagon gets broken during athletic ventures.

 

Note: These do not account for other pathologies like an infection, disease, surgery or issue that ASR cannot treat. Those cases were referred out and not taken into this data.
#1 You were driving with your parking brake on  – This is where you are lifting overhead without proper mobility—training for a marathon with poor running mechanics or without appropriate warm-ups, swinging a gold club with poor scapular stability, etc. You are doing your sport/workout with a brake grinding on your wheel, and eventually, it will wear out, and you will get some nagging pain that flares up.
#2 Poor maintenance habits: How often do you take care of your soft tissues? Do you foam roll, lacrosse ball, stretch, ice bath, etc., every day for 10-15 minutes? Do you take a full day of rest for every three training days? Do you sleep enough for your nervous system to fully recover? How about that diet? Getting enough good food to heal yourself? I know I am not perfect. Eventually, all of the sport/working out damage will catch up with you, and your poor recovery habits will take you down.
#3 Driving your garaged like a classic like a race car  – You know when the pandemic hit, and you decided that you were going to get your life right and start running 30 miles a week? Remember that time you chose not to listen to intelligent training professionals about all the volume you were doing on 40+-year-old knees that aren’t maintained all that well? That pain you go resulted from not properly progressing your body into activity OR overtraining with volume.
#4 Car wrecks  – This is rolling your ankle, getting slide tackled. And blowing out your ACL, torsion fracture in the hand while sparring in jiu-jitsu, etc. You can be strong as hell, and nothing will prevent you from these injuries. Sometimes they happen when you play a sport or train hard. In these cases, the best thing you can do is be fit.
#5 You got a lemon – Sometimes, you were dealt a bad hand, and you are born with genetics that pre-dispose you to an injury or illness. It happens. There is nothing you can do to change that or prevent it. You ultimately can only learn about it and work around it.
Remember 3 out of 5 of these issues are preventable. You just have to do the work. If you need help feel free to reach out and the crew at ASR & I can help keep your body working right.

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