Overcoming Chronic Elbow and Shoulder Pain: Matt’s Journey to Rehab and Success
Matt works in IT and has been very active his whole life.
I knew Matt when I lived in Melbourne as we trained at the same gym. He reached out because he was really struggling with elbow and shoulder pain.
If you’d like to listen to our conversation, you can do so here.
I understood his issue.
I had a lot of Chronic Elbow and Shoulder Pain in my late 20s from doing all the wrong things and it stops you doing a lot of the movements that get you results in the gym.
Matt’s issue wasn’t motivation, he has no problem training for hours every week.
It was that after 4 years, his issue wasn’t getting any better, in fact it was getting much worse.
At 30, he was worried that things would continue going down hill for his body.
My elbows would be burning with pain at night when I tried to sleep. I thought surgery was the only option at one point.
Matt thought that pushing through his chronic elbow and shoulder pain was a good option in the past and that it would finally heal but we took a completely different approach.
We focused on scaling the volume way back, eliminating anything that caused pain and focusing on reducing his stress and improving his recovery with sleep and nutrition.
If your body is stressed all the time, it will take an injury much longer to heal.
Building Strength and Motivation: A Skilled-Based Rehab Journey
Creating this foundation of healing we then focused on progressive strength based rehab programs that adapted every 4 weeks.
This was important as a lot of people get frustrated and board for repetitive physio exercises and never do them consistently.
“We then focused on working Matt up to strength work on the gymnastic rings, addressing his chronic elbow and shoulder pain. The goal of the muscle up excited Matt, and knowing that we were building in this direction kept him motivated during the slower months of rehab.
I like this skilled based rehab approach because if Matt or anybody can do a muscle up without elbow or shoulder pain, that’s a very strong signal back to your body that you are now bulletproof!
Matt was stuck in a real rut for over 4 years.
It wasn’t getting any better until he got an individualized plan that worked with his current citation.
Now he’s back doing judo, enjoying working on the rings, barbells and handstands and has even started ice skating as his new sports focus.
If you’ve been struggling with chronic elbow and shoulder pain or other injuries for years and have almost lost hope you can overcome it and with a proper tailored approach, you will.
If you’d like to receive a tailored plan, you can apply for online coaching here.