My least favorite thing is when someone comes up to me with pain, and just claims “I’m just getting old Alex.” While we know that joints, bones, and muscle tissues break down over time and sure you become a little stiffer as you age, we shouldn’t assume thats the issue.
I also don’t like when athletes think its an “overuse injury” when they have pain midseason. Sure, there are certains times when this may be the case. The issue I have is that we are assuming thats the reason.
Assessment
We can do a lot of different tests and assessments to determine why we have pain in an area or what we need to improve on. I have a 10 test assessment that gives me a good idea what I am working with and what things need improvement. For instance, if someone comes to me with elbow pain, I like to test their shoulder rotation. If they are very limited here, fixing this would probably eliminate that pain. These are things I wouldn’t know unless I did that assessment.
I also think too many trainers and coaches give their clients who have pain stretches to do. This would assume that their issue is tightness. It might be, but take person as an example:
As you see, this athlete has 165 degrees of rotation at her shoulder, plenty of range of motion. She can only control about 90 degrees. When she goes to hit a volleyball, press overhead, or hang from a pull up bar she is probably hanging out on her rotator cuff and labrum. If she is given stretches especially banded joint distractions this may add additional damage to the shoulder. We see the difference in the next case:
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