My first year of med school, I played soccer for a club team at the University of Missouri. We were having a practice, and it was a beautiful day to be out and moving. I was playing striker up front, and as the goalkeeper cleared the ball, I twisted to reach it and then felt this popping sensation and incredible pain in my right knee. I dropped, screaming, "I tore my ACL, I tore my ACL!"
That "ACL" would be the anterior cruciate ligament, and I knew immediately it was torn. The hospital visit that day confirmed my self-diagnosis. But I was stubborn. I didn't have surgery right away; a funny thing about this kind of injury is that after a couple of weeks you feel pretty normal. In the beginning I was hopeful: Maybe it wouldn't be so bad; maybe the tear would heal on its own. That's denial for you. But every time I twisted my knee after that, even a little bit, I felt it buckle. The joint was totally unstable. Still, that didn't stop me from playing basketball with my brothers. Then one day as I went for a layup, my knee gave out. I hobbled off the court, realizing I had to have this problem fixed. (To learn the secrets to injury-proofing your life, check out the 1,001 Doctor-Approved Health Fixes.)
What I didn't know at the time was that I could've been doing a whole host of preventive exercises that may have kept the original injury from happening. Later in life, when I got into plyometrics and strength training, I noticed that my knee felt better when I kept the muscles around it strong. (Search: What are plyometrics?) When my hips, glutes, and legs were strong, my knee hurt less.
I had an amazing realization: I can control my pain with strength.
This is crucial information for every active guy, because strength training can not only prevent injuries in the first place, but also ease your symptoms if you do have a joint injury that causes some chronic pain. How? Muscles support and stabilize joints. Despite some meniscus tearing and osteoarthritis, I can now train for the highest levels of endurance competition without a problem. I've completed nine Ironman triathlons and 29 marathons since my injury. Think about that the next time you want to skip a workout or skimp on rehabbing what's hurting. (Video: Prevent injuries with an active warmup)
But I'll never forget how awful that injury felt, not just in my knee but also in my mind. When you're active and that's taken away from you, it's traumatic. That's one of the biggest reasons I went into medicine, and why I wrote this story. If you're in pain and don't know why, or even if you know exactly why, you need to figure out what to do about it. My goal is to help you do that. I want you back in the game ASAP. You can also pain-proof your body by trying The Best Injury-Prevention Workout You’re Not Doing.
PLAY AROUND THE PAIN
One of the first things you hear when you hurt yourself is "R.I.C.E." That's a common sports-medicine acronym for "rest, ice, compression, and elevation." The conventional wisdom for a lot of sports injuries, especially strains and sprains, is to rest your body, ice the injured area a few times a day for the first 48 hours, apply compression (an elastic bandage, for example), and elevate the affected body part above your heart to decrease bloodflow, pain, and swelling.
Most of those work just fine—but I don't throw the term "R.I.C.E." around much. I thoroughly disagree with rest. (More on that in a moment.) Ice? I love ice. Ice is nature's anti-inflammatory. Compression and elevation work, too, but only on certain injuries. (Never compress a nerve-compression injury, for instance.) Put simply, the best treatments aren't always as universal as an acronym.
For me, healing is a two-step process. First, stop what you're doing. Second, keep going. And you're thinking: What does that mean?
It means that if you're hurt, stop the offending activity. And then start the real work. Let's be very clear: An injury does not grant you a vacation from fitness or exercise. You must continue to work out even if you need to take it easy on a particular body part so it can heal. There are specific reasons for this, and I've learned them firsthand as a doctor and an athlete. There are also smart ways to keep exercising without aggravating the body part that's been hurt. (And you can always use these 4 Tips to Cure Any Sports Injury.)
But first, the why.
