The mental stress of injuries– Part two: Why you may struggle completing your rehab exercises.

The major struggle with people doing their prescribed rehab exercises is they are BORING!!

Exercise is supposed to be fulfilling and fun - well mostly, then you get given these damn repetitive boring rehab exercises, which half the time you don’t know if you’re getting anything out of as you’re not feeling much.

99% of people want to feel like they are getting good bang for buck when exercising and unfortunately the really important rehab exercises (mostly stabilising exercises) don’t give you this. The stabilising muscles are generally rather small and boring little muscles (which is why you sometimes don't feel much when you are doing them). Unfortunately these are vital exercises you need to do to prevent re-injury.

You need to know why you are doing them -  explanation is key around this. 
If you don’t know why you are doing an exercise, then please ask us, we give them out for a specific reason not just to make your life boring……
 
Motivation - how can we help?
 
1). Education and expectations
The more you understand about your injury and the recovery process, the more equipped you will be to overcome it. You should be given guidelines, advice, a treatment plan and expectations around what to expect. We can also help to dispel any misinformation you may have read on the internet or heard from others……
 
2). Clear timelines and goals
This can be a slightly grey area, but you need to have a timeline in place about your injury and how often you are expected to come for treatment to get the best and fasted recovery. Without a rough (or even better promised) date you can return to activity and daily routines, it can be very difficult to stay motivated and get your rehab done.
 
3). Other training options?
If you’re anything like us, you’ll go crazy if you can’t exercise, so let’s come up with a plan around other safe options where you hopefully still feel like you’re exercising and working out (especially important for mental health).
 
4). Regular check ins.
All the research tells us the more frequently you attend treatment then better the results you get (no surprise there).
This makes sense for a number of reasons, a lot of the initial treatment is very hands on getting your pain reduced and function back, then we shift to the rehabilitation phase which is slightly more spread out.
Having regular check ins throughout this stage is vital to keep you on the right track. It also allows us to change your rehab as you progress and in a way you’re more likely to do you rehab (ie. homework) if you know you’re coming back to see us!!
 
So we know it’s hard to stay motivated sometimes, but stay the course, ask us lots of questions and we’ll get you there!