What these cowboys won't tell you!

If I still had back pain and I had one question for all the Instagrammers who are telling me which exercises to do to relieve it, the one question I would ask is:

How the fuck do you know?

And this isn't limited to back pain. It really transfers to any injury.

So back to the question...

You know exactly nothing about my history. You know exactly nothing about my old injuries. You don't know how tall I am. You don't know how heavy I am. You don't know if I'm stressed. You don't know if I have kids. You know nothing.

So how on earth do you know what's causing my pain?

Now let's move on to these exercises specifically.

What if I can't do these exercises because my back hurts too much?

Or even worse, what if they are so easy that they have absolutely no effect on me at all? No stimulus, no effort, which inevitably leads to no improvement. You see, the difference between doing a few stretches to make your lower back feel better for 10 minutes and doing a Hyrox or a triathlon are two completely different ends of the scale. This is the biggest problem I see in rehab. People have some pain somewhere. They do a few stretches and it starts to relieve itself, and they think that means they can go back to doing the events they want to do. I'm sure you can see that inevitably this will fail.

Information has always been free. With the rise of social media, bad information is now free, and with the rise of AI, you can get exercises or training plans for any condition.

But why does getting information from these sources not work?

Well, there are a few reasons.

You don't actually know where you need to start. Good programming and rehab is not actually about the exercises. It's about where you start, how you progress, and the order of those exercises in order to get you back to what you need to do. It's what you can do to begin with, how you can load safely, how you can build intensity, and how, when you get to the end of the rehab, you know you're going to be able to cope with the stresses that the event throws at you.

You don't actually know the problem. Using the back pain example, most people think their back is the problem - but often the back is the solution to a different problem, stepping in to do another muscle's job (an old injury site, for example). I wrote about this in depth in my last article, which you can find here. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/youre-rehabbing-your-nans-back-so-why-would-you-do-her-andy-reay-4mezf/

Because there is no accountability in working with a robot, there is no accountability in looking at Instagram, and there is no connection with another human being on the other side who genuinely wants to help.

I think this last point is so important. When you are injured, it is frustrating as hell - and to have someone you like, someone you trust, and someone you feel is genuinely trying to help you on the other side, is massively reassuring.

To have access to someone to share your pain, answer your questions, share the wins, share the excitement, and share the end product, is something that is missing from the social media world.

I feel like this newsletter has been a bit of a rant, but it doesn't come from a bad place. It comes from a level of frustration, because I see what can be achieved when you actually get some good advice and some good guidance. I get such amazing messages each week from all of my clients, but I also speak to others on calls who have been given terrible advice, and fundamentally they keep getting worse and weaker.

So if you've been using AI or Instagram, or trying these low-level, basic, bullshit exercises to solve your pain - take heed of this advice, and get some support from someone who actually knows what they're doing.

What's been happening at Razor Performance this week?

I had a lovely message from my client David, who two weeks ago completed the London Marathon, and on Sunday PB'd a 10k trail run by a fairly spectacular margin. When we met, he couldn't run more than 5k without his hamstring pulling and was getting more and more frustrated with his training. This was a happy message to receive on a Sunday.

I received a lovely email last week from my client Niamh, who I spent three months with before the marathon fixing her knees and getting her legs strong. She actually didn't need me in the two months leading into the marathon, because we'd got her strong enough to cope and her knees into a great place. When she completed the marathon, she called it a breeze. She said her family - who all have a history of knee pain - could not believe she had got through it so easily.

I had a returning client three months ago who I'd helped in the past with the last stages of his ACL rehab. He had been through a great rehab process but there were just a few things we needed to clear up. When he came back, his knees were a little bit niggling. He wanted to get back to running, but his strength training had also stalled. When we took a deeper dive into what he was doing, it was the old classic bodybuilding splits. He felt strong when he could front squat 100kg, bench press 100kg, and run on a treadmill. He was a mile off all of those things. We spent three months building the foundations back up, solving all of his weaknesses using three full body sessions a week. On Sunday I got a message saying he'd hit the 100kg bench, hit the 100kg front squat, and was running, hopping, and jumping comfortably.

I've been working with my brother-in-law for the last five months, and when he came to me, he just kept getting injured. Last week he completed two hours of tennis completely unscathed and won his game. He's been running 5ks for fun and his physique has completely changed (I'm a little bit jealous). He might read this newsletter, and I'd hate to tell him, but I'm really pleased with his progress. To be completely injury-free and doing what you want is a massive success.

Had a few new starts this month. One in particular is going to be super interesting.

I'll keep you posted on progress.

If any of this sounds familiar - the same injury keeps coming back, you're stuck in rehab limbo, or your training just isn't moving forward - book a free 30-minute Performance Audit. We'll work out exactly what's going on and what needs to change.

Book here: calendly.com/razorperformance/30min