Rest vs Exercises? What is optimal for long term recovery- PART 1

I’m here to debunk the mystery of “Rest vs Exercise” . Which is better for resolving pain long term?

This will be part 1 of a 3 part series of blogs discussing this question. 

We will discuss the methods and goals of each in turn then  on the 3rd I will explain my preference.

First will be REST.

Everybody's go to, you’ll hear phrases like “I’ve probably done too much” or “I’ve overdone it”. Maybe having a week or two off will resolve it. And in some cases it will reduce o maybe even resolve the symptoms, depending on how long you rest for and how long/ how much you were exercising prior. 

That makes logical sense though right? If doing X was too much caused me pain, doing far less than X should reduce the stress on the painful tissue to allow it to recover and not be painful anymore. “GREAT IDEA” some would say. 

But then what? You return to doing X again right. Because X, whatever it is whether that be running, golf, swimming or lifting weights is fun. It helps your mental health, your physical health, your social life etc. So you want to get back doing it for all those benefits. 

What happens when you get back to doing X again then? Well the definition of insanity is to do the exact same thing over again and expect a different outcome. 

That then asks the question: does rest actually change anything in the long term? Or does it just stop you from doing things you enjoy and get all these amazing benefits from just to feel less pain, to then return to doing it again and return to being in pain. Nothing changed. 

Now some people will argue if you build back up slower this time you’ll be stronger and be able to come with the exercise next time. My 2 reservations with that theory are 1) How long of a time period is “building up slowly?”, because muscles take 12-18 months to change, we know that thanks to Davis’s law. Most people recommended building up “slowly” over 6 weeks. That's not long enough to generate change in tissues that will result in long term change. 2) The volume and intensity of the general public exercise is relatively low, from the thousands of people we’ve helped over the years anyway. So it's unlikely, unless you're an athlete undertaking some large training plan like marathon running, that the amount of exercise you were doing before was excessive. It’s far more likely your level of function is so low that day to day tasks are close to the threshold of symptoms. Then when you add 2 exercise sessions on top each week that pushes you over the threshold for symptoms and you develop pain. The solution here isn’t to change the exercise, its to change the function of the person doing the exercise. Improve the person's function so they can tolerate more exercise, at a higher volume and intensity. Not only can they exercise freely then without  symptoms but the person will also benefit from hundreds of extra improvements that come from having a higher level of function. Benefits like better cognition, problem solving, decision making, improved lung function, improved blood pressure, oxygen saturation, balance, coordination etc. 

The positives to this approach as I see them are, it is entirely free so everybody can do it. It is “easy to do”, I place this in “ as that depends on how important exercise is to your mental health and lastly it is effective at improving symptoms in the immediate short term. 

The negatives, not exercising and resting can have both negative effects on the person's health not only physically such as weight gain for example, but also their mental health. In the long term unless the person is willing to commit 12-18 months of time this is not a long term solution and in the case they are willing to commit this amount of time I have far greater ways of achieving this.  Lastly and probably the most simple, if it worked musculoskeletal symptoms wouldn't effect 90%+ of the population, painkillers and anti-inflammatoires wouldn't exist and private health like chiropractors, physios, osteopaths wouldn't have a job.