Continuous muscle injury and pain due to over strenuous physical activity
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I am a 19 years old guy. I've been trying to get into gymming and badminton (which I played earlier for 4 years but left for almost 3 years due to academic reasons). But every time I try to get into it, I overexert myself and strain my muscles so much that it is impossible for me to resume the activity for nearly a week. And by the time that comes to pass I lose motivation, it's getting frustrating. The biggest problem is that it is impossible for me to know that I am over-exerting myself until a few hours and sometimes a whole day has passed after that. During, I just try until I reach fatigue or exhaustion which is the way I think everyone should exercise or play. Instead of doing something reckless or being sedentary forever, I wish to approach this wisely. For example currently I am experiencing a severe Bicep pain ever after taking painkillers. I've rested for a whole day and I would like to resume but there's no way out. Surprisingly my parents are doctors and they say I should rest, it being the only remedy. I understand but I would at least like to accelerate the progress.. Kindly help me out here.
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alex20370 akshaj51789
Posted
Are your joints more flexible than average? I have always had these same issues and it turns out it was because my muscles have always had to work overtime to stabilize loose joints due to hEDS.
I think no matter what, it'll be important for you to slowly work your way up in exercise and sports because you've admitted to having a hard time knowing your limits. Taking things slow and learning how to listen to your body instead of tuning out pain and discomforts is key to getting to the point where you can do intense activity and know when to stop. It could potentially be a proprioception issue, a reduced awareness of where your body is in space and how much strain you're putting on it. I've heard that compression clothing/sleeves/items can help with this by making you more aware of the areas of your body that have that slight pressure on them from the clothing.
It is also common, from what I've seen anecdotally, for people to push too hard or too far when they get really in the zone, have a lot of adrenaline and/or endorphins, or have ADHD and hyperfocus on things at the expense of ignoring other things like signals from your body (ok that one's personal experience.)
All of these really boil down to paying too much attention to the activity and not noticing cues your body is trying to give you, or even dismissing them without much thought. I remember seeing a sign for a machine that said "if you don't schedule time for maintenance, then your equipment will schedule it for you" and really relating to it. If I don't take the time to slow down, pay attention to any bodily needs I'm ignoring, or take a break when I need it, then I'll often end up stuck in bed for a few days recovering from one day where I way overdid it and am suddenly forced to rest because I didn't take the time to before.
Of course there are things that can help prevent this in the future (stretching, warm ups, breaks, etc) and things that can help with pain and recovery in the present (good ol' RICE: rest, ice, compression, elevation. Epsom salt baths and heat can also help to relax tense muscles before bed to reduce pain the next day as long as you don't have any injuries with inflammation that shouldn't be heated up.) But in the long term, as annoying as it is, what is best is to get to know your body and how it signals that you need rest. And you won't learn that from just pushing yourself to this point a bunch of times. I did that most of my life and never learned my limits. In fact, as time went on it got too easy to ignore pain and discomfort and old injuries from doing just that led to me blocking out pain automatically to the point of not realizing an injury, headache, etc until hours later. It has only been this past year, now
24 years old, that I'm finally taking things slow, figuring out what unique things about me change my experience compared to the average person, how to work around/with them, and actually taking a rest when needed. I hope you learn this lesson sooner than I did, and it doesn't take you as many injuries as it did me.