Why do some injuries linger for months while others heal quickly? The answer often lies not in the injury itself, but in when treatment begins. For driven, active people who want to maintain their quality of life, understanding the hidden dangers of delayed recovery can be the difference between getting back to 100% and developing chronic issues.
Scar tissue forms differently depending on how and when you start moving after an injury. Without proper guidance, this tissue grows chaotically, creating motion restrictions that become increasingly difficult to address. Meanwhile, prolonged swelling directly impairs muscle activation and strength, while neural hypersensitivity—the nervous system's "memory" of pain—becomes more entrenched with each passing day of delayed treatment.
The consequences extend beyond physical limitations. Your proprioception—the body's ability to sense position in space—deteriorates, making balance and coordination more challenging. Perhaps most significantly, confidence in your body's capabilities diminishes, creating hesitation that fundamentally alters movement patterns and substantially increases re-injury risk. This mind-body connection cannot be separated, as anyone who's rehabilitated from ACL surgery or ankle sprains can attest—the fear of re-injury often persists long after tissues have healed.
The goal of effective recovery is elegantly simple: increasing functionality while decreasing discomfort. Whether you're looking to return to paddle boarding, weight training, or simply walking without pain, prompt intervention creates the foundation for success. Your path back to activity doesn't have to be complicated, but it does require understanding that recovery is a process best started early. Reach out if you're facing these challenges—the journey to pain-free movement begins with that first step.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're a driven, active person who wants to reach
and pursue a higher qualitylife with some ambition, then
guess what this podcast is foryou.
This is the Driven AthletePodcast.
So imagine somebody getsinjured or they're battling some
pain.
There are issues with delayingthe recovery process.
(00:21):
All right.
So if a person delays therecovery, here are the pitfalls
involved with that.
It just makes it morechallenging to get things back
to functioning appropriately ata hundred percent.
And here's, here's, the reasonswhy.
All right, uh, when somebodygets injured, uh, it makes it
the longer that somebody delaysrecovery process, the more
(00:41):
challenging it is for theirrange of motion to come back.
All right, the range of motionin their joint gets more
difficult to regain function andget back to the standard
functioning range of motion,longer that they take to start
the process.
The reason is because scartissue can develop.
For sure, scar tissue is alwaysgoing to develop.
But if we don't influence thescar tissue to grow in certain
(01:04):
patterns and pathways, it growsdisorganized.
And that disorganized growth ofscar tissue is what creates
blocks and contractures tohappen at the extreme end.
So the pliability and the rangeof motion becomes more limited
and more difficult to regainbecause the scar tissue grows
(01:26):
more disorganized, but if wemove through the tissue as it
grows, it grows in a moreorganized fashion and more
parallel fiber fashion, so theycan glide and slide better like
this, versus being all gnarledup and disorganized and they
can't lengthen.
So the lengthening of thetissue and the fibers and the
collagen fibers, it's justthat's super important for the
(01:47):
range of motion to come back.
Early movement actually helpsto decrease swelling.
The presence of swelling orfluid in the joint increased.
It actually has been found tobe correlated with decreased
muscle activation and musclestrength.
So the more delay that there is, we're limited range of motion
(02:08):
and scar tissue disorganizedgrowth, and then also the muscle
activation is going to beinhibited because there's more
swelling in the joint andswelling.
We improve that if we startmoving early and get the fluid
out, and it facilitates thehealing process.
The key with all this stuff,though, is that when you do
recovery things like if you workwith us, like and we're working
(02:31):
on range of motion, strengthand activation, whatever the key
is to leave not feeling worseor more lit up.
All right if we're lightingthings up, if, like, if a person
is trying to recover, butthey're making things more
irritated and painful.
It's just going to increase theinflammation and increase the
swelling.
That's going to delay stuff.
The key is to do things thatare going to be purposeful and
(02:54):
helpful to fix the problems thathave been developed, but not
the expense of causing more pain.
Because motion is lotion right.
The more we know that, the moremotion, the more lotion for the
joint blood flow, nutrients,oxygen.
It facilitates the healingresponse.
But if we do too much and tooaggravating or too aggressive,
it's just going to facilitatemore inflammation and more
(03:15):
irritation.
So the key is to not hurt whenyou're done, but rather be like
man.
I feel better right now, I feellooser, right, like it feels
good.
That's the threshold ofintensity that we need to be at
right now and we need to testthe water.
But too much it creates like amore inflammatory response and
we want to avoid thatrollercoaster.
So the presence of swellingdecreases muscle activation and
(03:36):
muscle strength.
So someone's gonna be weakerfor longer and it's more
difficult to reactivate thosemuscles.
And if we can get the fluid outand start the healing process,
the muscle activation will bebetter.
So weakness is it's justprolonged and delays the healing
process if we don't startmoving and activating things
early, right, as appropriate.
(03:57):
Neural hypersensitivity is alsosuper common and delayed.
So imagine it's like it's ahurt.
Right, they injured something,things are sensitive and it
hurts.
Well, you also have nerves.
Right, you have muscles, bones,ligaments, tendons, but you
also got nerves, and nervesinnervate everything and they're
all super sensitive and they'resuper, um, uh, resentful, all
(04:17):
right, and they remember things,uh, but they're very sensitive
and they take forever to healand settle down.
It's just about like settlingthe nerve neural
hypersensitivity down, but thelonger it takes, the longer
somebody delays their recoveryprocess, the longer that this
neural hypersensitivity can beprolonged and then it delays the
healing process again.
(04:38):
So things will stay sensitivefor longer and, um, that and
sensitivity can also create somemuscle guarding.
So muscles can be weak but theycan also be tight.
So muscle tightness is going tolimit range of motion and then
it makes things more stiff.
You're not moving as well asyou could move, limiting the
(05:00):
fluid to get out of the joints.
Synovial fluid can't beproduced.
Nerves are super hypersensitive.
Range of motion is limited.
That leads to people limping orjust compensating during this
recovery process and that'sgoing to lead to other issues.
It was like their leg,something in their ankle, their
knee, their hip, whatever, andthey're going to compensate
their gait pattern and theirwalking pattern.
That's going to make their lowback and their hips hurt.
(05:21):
That's just a common thing thatwe see a lot.
So this is an example ofpitfalls, of waiting too long
and delaying the recoveryprocess, with that nerve
activation issues andcommunication problems.
It also leads to proprioceptiveissues.
(05:41):
So neural proprioception isthere's a lot of nerve endings
in your joint capsules of yourjoints and these
mechanoreceptors and jointcapsule nerves, nerve endings.
They give feedback of likewhere you are in space.
So imagine if you had your eyesclosed, right, you could touch
your fingers together.
You know where your fingertipsare in space by feel and space
(06:08):
by feel.
Those are the nerve endings inyour joints and your limbs and
in your body that let you knowwhere you are in space, even
though you're not looking atthem.
All right, that's calledproprioception.
That also helps with balance,all right.
So the other way to put this islike imagine like a football
player is going up to catch aball and jump in the air and
they need to land with theirfeet inbounds, but they're not
looking at their feet, they'retrying to catch the ball at the
same time.
How do they know where theirfeet are in space but they're
(06:31):
looking at the ball at the sametime while they're moving.
That's proprioception, allright.
So they know where their feetare in space and they have a
feel for when they need to tryto land their toes to stay
inbounds, while they're lookingat the ball and trying to catch
at the same time time.
So that's proprioception.
So the proprioceptive feedbackis also inhibited with this
neural inhibition andhypersensitivity and that can
(06:52):
delay the healing process.
Again, these pitfalls are justrecovery, delaying recovery
process.
And then the last one I'm goingto mention is just confidence.
I mean, we have definitely Ipersonally have put a lot more
weight on the mind-bodyconnection, because you can't
separate the mind from the body,no matter what you do, and the
(07:12):
confidence level of just beingable to move and groove better.
It just takes longer and longerto develop the confidence back
in the joint or your body, as inlike I don't feel confident
planting on my leg and shiftinginto a different direction,
changing directions I'd be likeagility right, or I don't feel
confident.
Like pushing off of my arms myshoulder, since I injured my
elbow my hand, my shoulder, Ijust don't feel confident like
(07:35):
really pushing off of my arms ordoing a pull-up or whatever.
Just don't feel confident withit.
And there's apprehensioninvolved and that in a bit that
natural apprehensive thoughtthat just takes a while to
develop back, probably thelongest of anything.
Imagine if somebody sprainstheir ankle or if they sprain
their knee, whatever, andthey're trying to do agility
(07:56):
movements and power movementsand jump off one leg like a
power layup or a single leg boxjump maybe a better in-gym
exercise.
They're not going to feelconfident pushing through their
knee and driving through theirleg and exploding and then
landing on it and that alterstheir mechanics and that alters
compensation.
That can develop compensationpatterns in the other leg or
(08:19):
other compensatory strategies inthat same leg and the biggest
risk for injury is compensationpatterns through high velocity
movements.
All right.
So it's super important tobegin the healing process early
so that the confidence pushingthrough your leg or your arm or
using your bot, like that jointas equal as the other areas so
(08:41):
that you don't compensatethrough other things and that
just can increase the risk ofanother injury.
So I think the confidence thattakes the longest to get back
right, if anybody's ever hadthis is the extreme end.
But, like ACL surgery, that's ajourney.
And late stages in ACL rehab andrecovery is we're doing like
explosions, jumps, agility,running, sprinting, deceleration
(09:03):
, acceleration, lateral plane,transverse plane all that stuff.
It's fun, it's cool.
Back to playing sports.
Transverse plane, all thatstuff right, it's fun, it's cool
.
Back to playing sports.
The most difficult thing that wefind is the athletes feeling
confident, accepting theirweight and their load through
their knee while they'redecelerating and then have to
re-accelerate and changedirections in another direction
(09:25):
or just explode off the groundand then land on their same knee
in a graceful and stablefashion.
Right, it's because they'rescared of it.
Right, it's like it hurts.
I don't want it to buckle.
I'm a nerd, I haven't used ityet.
Right, that confidence it takesminiature wins over a long
period of time to wean intobeing more confident and be able
(09:46):
to, like, drive through yourleg and explode through it the
same way you did before surgeryor the other leg.
That's like the role model.
So that confidence takes awhile to get back.
So those are collectively, thoseare kind of maybe all the a lot
of the pitfalls of delayingrecovery if somebody gets
injured, right.
And the last thing is if it'snot like a true, if it's not a
(10:07):
surgical thing, well it's stillgoing to be surgical the higher,
increased risk of lettingthings develop into a chronic
pain issue.
So chronic pain is a wholeother story and I've done a
couple podcasts on pain scienceand chronic pain.
But the longer somebody delaystheir healing, the little bit
(10:33):
increased of allowing it todevelop into a chronic pain
problem.
And that is a challenging thingto to cycle to break Um.
So we encourage people to starttaking action as soon as they
can to uh get things movingbetter and feeling better.
So if you have any questions,don't hesitate to reach out and
uh, we're always open tocomments, questions, concerns
and conflicting opinions, ideas.
And if you have any issuesyourself, like pain or you know
(10:55):
somebody, feel free to share ourinfo or just give us a call or
email us, because we're alwaysenthusiastic and optimistic to
help people get back to 100% andfix their problems so they can
get more functional with lesspain.
I had a guy one time.
He was like you know whatyou're doing.
You're like increasing myfunctionality and then
decreasing my discomfort.
(11:16):
I'm like that's a great way toput it we're decreasing
discomfort and increasingfunctionality so you can get
back to doing things at a highlevel that you want.
Or like this guy in particularlike he wanted a foil board and
then paddle board and he alsoexercises a lot like leg
exercise, lunges, bulgariansplit squats and box jumps, and
then wanted to go on walks withhis wife and paddle board and
(11:38):
foil board and like do a bunchof boating, right, but anyway,
all of that stuff.
He's like yeah, I'm actually I'mgetting more functional at the
things that I want to do thatare fun and you're decreasing my
discomfort at the same time.
I that I want to do that arefun and you're decreasing my
discomfort at the same time.
I'm like Gene, that's exactlyit.
You're right, it's a great wayto put it.
But anyway, don't hesitate toreach out.
We'd love to help you.
We live vicariously throughhelping out patients and we're
(11:58):
always optimistic andenthusiastic.
So give us a call and we'llcatch y'all next time.
If you're a driven, active person who wants to reach
and pursue a higher qualitylife with some ambition, then
guess what this podcast is foryou.
This is the Driven AthletePodcast.
So imagine somebody getsinjured or they're battling some
pain.
There are issues with delayingthe recovery process.
(00:21):
All right.
So if a person delays therecovery, here are the pitfalls
involved with that.
It just makes it morechallenging to get things back
to functioning appropriately ata hundred percent.
And here's, here's, the reasonswhy.
All right, uh, when somebodygets injured, uh, it makes it
the longer that somebody delaysrecovery process, the more
(00:41):
challenging it is for theirrange of motion to come back.
All right, the range of motionin their joint gets more
difficult to regain function andget back to the standard
functioning range of motion,longer that they take to start
the process.
The reason is because scartissue can develop.
For sure, scar tissue is alwaysgoing to develop.
But if we don't influence thescar tissue to grow in certain
(01:04):
patterns and pathways, it growsdisorganized.
And that disorganized growth ofscar tissue is what creates
blocks and contractures tohappen at the extreme end.
So the pliability and the rangeof motion becomes more limited
and more difficult to regainbecause the scar tissue grows
(01:26):
more disorganized, but if wemove through the tissue as it
grows, it grows in a moreorganized fashion and more
parallel fiber fashion, so theycan glide and slide better like
this, versus being all gnarledup and disorganized and they
can't lengthen.
So the lengthening of thetissue and the fibers and the
collagen fibers, it's justthat's super important for the
(01:47):
range of motion to come back.
Early movement actually helpsto decrease swelling.
The presence of swelling orfluid in the joint increased.
It actually has been found tobe correlated with decreased
muscle activation and musclestrength.
So the more delay that there is, we're limited range of motion
(02:08):
and scar tissue disorganizedgrowth, and then also the muscle
activation is going to beinhibited because there's more
swelling in the joint andswelling.
We improve that if we startmoving early and get the fluid
out, and it facilitates thehealing process.
The key with all this stuff,though, is that when you do
recovery things like if you workwith us, like and we're working
(02:31):
on range of motion, strengthand activation, whatever the key
is to leave not feeling worseor more lit up.
All right if we're lightingthings up, if, like, if a person
is trying to recover, butthey're making things more
irritated and painful.
It's just going to increase theinflammation and increase the
swelling.
That's going to delay stuff.
The key is to do things thatare going to be purposeful and
(02:54):
helpful to fix the problems thathave been developed, but not
the expense of causing more pain.
Because motion is lotion right.
The more we know that, the moremotion, the more lotion for the
joint blood flow, nutrients,oxygen.
It facilitates the healingresponse.
But if we do too much and tooaggravating or too aggressive,
it's just going to facilitatemore inflammation and more
(03:15):
irritation.
So the key is to not hurt whenyou're done, but rather be like
man.
I feel better right now, I feellooser, right, like it feels
good.
That's the threshold ofintensity that we need to be at
right now and we need to testthe water.
But too much it creates like amore inflammatory response and
we want to avoid thatrollercoaster.
So the presence of swellingdecreases muscle activation and
(03:36):
muscle strength.
So someone's gonna be weakerfor longer and it's more
difficult to reactivate thosemuscles.
And if we can get the fluid outand start the healing process,
the muscle activation will bebetter.
So weakness is it's justprolonged and delays the healing
process if we don't startmoving and activating things
early, right, as appropriate.
(03:57):
Neural hypersensitivity is alsosuper common and delayed.
So imagine it's like it's ahurt.
Right, they injured something,things are sensitive and it
hurts.
Well, you also have nerves.
Right, you have muscles, bones,ligaments, tendons, but you
also got nerves, and nervesinnervate everything and they're
all super sensitive and they'resuper, um, uh, resentful, all
(04:17):
right, and they remember things,uh, but they're very sensitive
and they take forever to healand settle down.
It's just about like settlingthe nerve neural
hypersensitivity down, but thelonger it takes, the longer
somebody delays their recoveryprocess, the longer that this
neural hypersensitivity can beprolonged and then it delays the
healing process again.
(04:38):
So things will stay sensitivefor longer and, um, that and
sensitivity can also create somemuscle guarding.
So muscles can be weak but theycan also be tight.
So muscle tightness is going tolimit range of motion and then
it makes things more stiff.
You're not moving as well asyou could move, limiting the
(05:00):
fluid to get out of the joints.
Synovial fluid can't beproduced.
Nerves are super hypersensitive.
Range of motion is limited.
That leads to people limping orjust compensating during this
recovery process and that'sgoing to lead to other issues.
It was like their leg,something in their ankle, their
knee, their hip, whatever, andthey're going to compensate
their gait pattern and theirwalking pattern.
That's going to make their lowback and their hips hurt.
(05:21):
That's just a common thing thatwe see a lot.
So this is an example ofpitfalls, of waiting too long
and delaying the recoveryprocess, with that nerve
activation issues andcommunication problems.
It also leads to proprioceptiveissues.
(05:41):
So neural proprioception isthere's a lot of nerve endings
in your joint capsules of yourjoints and these
mechanoreceptors and jointcapsule nerves, nerve endings.
They give feedback of likewhere you are in space.
So imagine if you had your eyesclosed, right, you could touch
your fingers together.
You know where your fingertipsare in space by feel and space
(06:08):
by feel.
Those are the nerve endings inyour joints and your limbs and
in your body that let you knowwhere you are in space, even
though you're not looking atthem.
All right, that's calledproprioception.
That also helps with balance,all right.
So the other way to put this islike imagine like a football
player is going up to catch aball and jump in the air and
they need to land with theirfeet inbounds, but they're not
looking at their feet, they'retrying to catch the ball at the
same time.
How do they know where theirfeet are in space but they're
(06:31):
looking at the ball at the sametime while they're moving.
That's proprioception, allright.
So they know where their feetare in space and they have a
feel for when they need to tryto land their toes to stay
inbounds, while they're lookingat the ball and trying to catch
at the same time time.
So that's proprioception.
So the proprioceptive feedbackis also inhibited with this
neural inhibition andhypersensitivity and that can
(06:52):
delay the healing process.
Again, these pitfalls are justrecovery, delaying recovery
process.
And then the last one I'm goingto mention is just confidence.
I mean, we have definitely Ipersonally have put a lot more
weight on the mind-bodyconnection, because you can't
separate the mind from the body,no matter what you do, and the
(07:12):
confidence level of just beingable to move and groove better.
It just takes longer and longerto develop the confidence back
in the joint or your body, as inlike I don't feel confident
planting on my leg and shiftinginto a different direction,
changing directions I'd be likeagility right, or I don't feel
confident.
Like pushing off of my arms myshoulder, since I injured my
elbow my hand, my shoulder, Ijust don't feel confident like
(07:35):
really pushing off of my arms ordoing a pull-up or whatever.
Just don't feel confident withit.
And there's apprehensioninvolved and that in a bit that
natural apprehensive thoughtthat just takes a while to
develop back, probably thelongest of anything.
Imagine if somebody sprainstheir ankle or if they sprain
their knee, whatever, andthey're trying to do agility
(07:56):
movements and power movementsand jump off one leg like a
power layup or a single leg boxjump maybe a better in-gym
exercise.
They're not going to feelconfident pushing through their
knee and driving through theirleg and exploding and then
landing on it and that alterstheir mechanics and that alters
compensation.
That can develop compensationpatterns in the other leg or
(08:19):
other compensatory strategies inthat same leg and the biggest
risk for injury is compensationpatterns through high velocity
movements.
All right.
So it's super important tobegin the healing process early
so that the confidence pushingthrough your leg or your arm or
using your bot, like that jointas equal as the other areas so
(08:41):
that you don't compensatethrough other things and that
just can increase the risk ofanother injury.
So I think the confidence thattakes the longest to get back
right, if anybody's ever hadthis is the extreme end.
But, like ACL surgery, that's ajourney.
And late stages in ACL rehab andrecovery is we're doing like
explosions, jumps, agility,running, sprinting, deceleration
(09:03):
, acceleration, lateral plane,transverse plane all that stuff.
It's fun, it's cool.
Back to playing sports.
Transverse plane, all thatstuff right, it's fun, it's cool
.
Back to playing sports.
The most difficult thing that wefind is the athletes feeling
confident, accepting theirweight and their load through
their knee while they'redecelerating and then have to
re-accelerate and changedirections in another direction
(09:25):
or just explode off the groundand then land on their same knee
in a graceful and stablefashion.
Right, it's because they'rescared of it.
Right, it's like it hurts.
I don't want it to buckle.
I'm a nerd, I haven't used ityet.
Right, that confidence it takesminiature wins over a long
period of time to wean intobeing more confident and be able
(09:46):
to, like, drive through yourleg and explode through it the
same way you did before surgeryor the other leg.
That's like the role model.
So that confidence takes awhile to get back.
So those are collectively, thoseare kind of maybe all the a lot
of the pitfalls of delayingrecovery if somebody gets
injured, right.
And the last thing is if it'snot like a true, if it's not a
(10:07):
surgical thing, well it's stillgoing to be surgical the higher,
increased risk of lettingthings develop into a chronic
pain issue.
So chronic pain is a wholeother story and I've done a
couple podcasts on pain scienceand chronic pain.
But the longer somebody delaystheir healing, the little bit
(10:33):
increased of allowing it todevelop into a chronic pain
problem.
And that is a challenging thingto to cycle to break Um.
So we encourage people to starttaking action as soon as they
can to uh get things movingbetter and feeling better.
So if you have any questions,don't hesitate to reach out and
uh, we're always open tocomments, questions, concerns
and conflicting opinions, ideas.
And if you have any issuesyourself, like pain or you know
(10:55):
somebody, feel free to share ourinfo or just give us a call or
email us, because we're alwaysenthusiastic and optimistic to
help people get back to 100% andfix their problems so they can
get more functional with lesspain.
I had a guy one time.
He was like you know whatyou're doing.
You're like increasing myfunctionality and then
decreasing my discomfort.
(11:16):
I'm like that's a great way toput it we're decreasing
discomfort and increasingfunctionality so you can get
back to doing things at a highlevel that you want.
Or like this guy in particularlike he wanted a foil board and
then paddle board and he alsoexercises a lot like leg
exercise, lunges, bulgariansplit squats and box jumps, and
then wanted to go on walks withhis wife and paddle board and
(11:38):
foil board and like do a bunchof boating, right, but anyway,
all of that stuff.
He's like yeah, I'm actually I'mgetting more functional at the
things that I want to do thatare fun and you're decreasing my
discomfort at the same time.
I that I want to do that arefun and you're decreasing my
discomfort at the same time.
I'm like Gene, that's exactlyit.
You're right, it's a great wayto put it.
But anyway, don't hesitate toreach out.
We'd love to help you.
We live vicariously throughhelping out patients and we're
(11:58):
always optimistic andenthusiastic.
So give us a call and we'llcatch y'all next time.
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