If you’re over 40 and suffering with unresolved muscle or joint pain, perhaps you need to think about the problem differently to find a solution.
You’ve no doubt tried physiotherapy, stretched the life out of yourself and had a few massages. You may have even investigated the issue more thoroughly with scans and blood tests.
If this was all to no avail, it seems a different approach is required.
The pain or discomfort you feel is just the most apparent manifestation of the problem. It’s also the one thing that will motivate many people to take action.
This is why pain serves as such an effective tool for your brain to influence your behaviour.
Here’s the problem though, pain can’t tell you what is wrong, it can only indicate that something isnt right.
Providing there’s no underlying medical condition, you are left with the following likely contributors:
Lifestyle
Stress levels, sleep, unhealthy habits
Nutrition
Vitamin deficiencies can cause pain and disturbances in the muscular system.
Exercise
The health of your muscular system
Whilst it’s possible to reduce pain with lifestyle changes and dietary adjustments, I’m going to presume you have these under control.
Let’s take a deeper look at the last of those, the health of your muscular system.
How healthy is your muscular system?
This is particularly relevant if you’re middle aged as this is the time our muscular systems begin deteriorating.
That said, you’ve no doubt been diligently performing a host of exercises given to you by your physio but have made little to no progress.
There are many reasons for this which I won’t bore you with here. Suffice to say it’s the accuracy of the assessment and the application of exercise that’s critical.
Interestingly it’s possible, and in my experience quite common, to have two people with the exact same symptoms but entirely different weaknesses in their muscular system.
Likewise you can have two people with similar weaknesses but entirely different symptoms.
Crucially they will both respond well to careful loading of their muscular systems with targeted resistance training.
So if pain is a relatively unreliable indication of what’s actually going on, what else can we use to find solutions?
Feedback
Whilst pain is the most powerful form of feedback your nervous system has available, a closer look can reveal other messages that are sometimes missed.
No feedback at all can be just as instructive, or feeling the exercise in areas that shouldn’t be involved. This is especially common in cases where pain has been apparent for long periods of time.
Control or quality of movement
Remember when you first started exercising and some movements were jerky and seemingly not under your control?
There are movements that will feel exactly like that now if you pay close enough attention. It’s these areas that require work, especially if you’re looking to return to a particular activity.
Output
Closely related to control is output. Whilst you don’t necessarily have to be symmetrical to be out of pain, if you can produce significantly less force with one limb compared to the other, closing this gap is advisable.
Range of motion
This might seem obvious but hardly anybody pays attention to this. And if they do they’re not thinking about it from the side of the axis where you can make long term changes.
Restrictions in motion usually lead to stretching. Rarely are the muscles that are responsible for the movement that’s limited the area of focus. This is the key to long term improvement.
Summary
If you’re middle aged and suffering with unresolved muscle and joint pain, this is a sign that your muscular system needs some attention.
Unfortunately the problem won’t be solved in the long term with passive approaches like stretching and massage, as you’re probably now aware.
What’s required is a thorough assessment of your muscular system to discover where the deficits are. And then careful loading of those weaknesses with targeted resistance training.
Remember it’s not your age that’s important but rather the health of your muscular system. Improve this and you’ll feel younger at any age.