How to fix a muscle injury

Once an injury occurs, you need to use ICE. Don't argue with me about how much you don't like it or how you enjoy your jacuzzi. You need to ice the area.

Most of the patients that hurt themselves on the weekend come in on Mondays complaining that their pain is "just getting worse and worse." They were putting heat on their injury.

Use ice for 20 minutes and then take the ice off for at least 20 minutes. Do this 3-5 times per day for the first 3 days.

You are going to be icing for probably 3-4 days until the pain starts go down, which indicates that the bleeding has stopped and the injury has started to repair itself. Then use an exercise that directly works the muscle.

Lets say that you injured your back. You can use a broomstick and do 3 sets of 25 repetitions. You might do squats, straight leg dead-lifts, or hyperextensions. If your pain increases while you exercise, you're going to continue icing and wait another day. If the pain doesn't get worse, it's safe to exercise.

The next day you will do the same exercise but might add a small amount of weight. You want to add just a bit of weight, maybe a pound at a time. Just add a bit of weight every day, increasing as much as you can tolerate each workout. It might hurt but you will have to listen to your body and will have to learn the difference between a good hurt and a bad hurt. If you are unsure, ask me. The pain is the pain of exercising an injury safely, not re-injuring it.

This exercise method will flush blood through the injury while forcing the new mending tissue to be strong and in alignment.

After 10 days of 3 sets of 25 repetitions, start increasing the weight and lower the reps to 15. So now you will do 3 sets of 15, but the weight might be significantly more. After a week of that, increase the weight again and lower the reps to 10. For further strength, you can increase the weight and do 5 repetitions.

At this period of time you should be icing only 3 times per day. Do it in the morning, after the exercise, and before bed.

By now it's been about 4-5 weeks. During this time do NO OTHER HEAVY WORK, so that your resources can focus on the injury. It is important to work slowly and make no quick or fast movements in the beginning. Use light weights that can be handled with high repetitions. Do exercises daily for the greatest improvement.

You should be back to full recovery with chiropractic adjustments, Graston therapy, Cold laser therapy and daily exercise such as outlined in this blog.