FEAR AVOIDANCE & CHRONIC PAIN
One of the leading causes of chronic pain is fear avoidance – which is literally fear of movement and exercise due to pain and discomfort. Individuals are hesitant to exercise (particularly to lift weights), falsely believing that they may do further damage to pre-existing injuries. The vast majority of the time, this is simply not the case.
People need to be encouraged to move, and resistance training should be the go to intervention and form of exercise for most people with a history of pain and injury.
There is level 1 evidence to support the use of resistance training as a therapeutic modality for a variety of musculoskeletal conditions (including tendinopathies, low back pain, osteoarthritis and post-surgery), especially those of the chronic variety (Kristensen et al., 2012).
Exercise is medicine (quite literally), and is the second most important “treatment” modality used by allied health professionals (and no, not second to massage and manipulation…. it is second only to individualised patient education!).
To quote Adam Meakins – “You can’t go wrong getting strong.”
Chris Bryceson
B. Health Sciences (Physio), APAM
CB Physiotherapy