Jill Miller, who is the inventor of a program called Yoga Tune Up, recently revealed on her blog about a month ago that she needs a total hip replacement.  At the age of 45.  Now, she has been absolutely instrumental in helping many, many people discover a modality that can really help irritated tissue and brought it to the main stream.  The story, however is what I want to bring your attention to today.

What was telling about her first blog post, which you can find HERE (and I’ll link to the second part HERE) is that she felt nagging pain not only for most of her life but for the past seven years.  Until recently she didn’t bother to have it looked at because she was worried about surgery for personal reasons.  That’s fine.

This is one of the most respected and knowledgeable (from an anatomy standpoint) body teachers IN THE WORLD and even she ignored her symptoms.  We all do it, from your fellow office worker to high level athletes who want to keep competing.

“I’m okay, I just need to stretch.”  “I’ll start using my therapy ball.”  “I’ll take a couple of weeks off from running and everything will be fine.”  And then we go back to doing the same thing that caused the problem in the first place and are suddenly surprised when the issue comes back – and worse.

Just this week another client of mine’s husband after almost a year of pain finally decided to go to the doctor and get checked because his knee wouldn’t stop failing and buckling.  My prediction is either a torn ACL or a severely torn meniscus (or both).  The problem is that he’s been walking around on it for the better part of a year without any treatment or attention, and likely it’s gotten a lot worse.  This might mean that something that could have been helped with therapy before might need surgery now.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Your body isn’t stupid.

Pain, collapse, restricted range is a signal that something is wrong.

The sooner you figure it out and fix it the better off long term you will be.

If you have water coming into your basement, you figure out where it is coming from and plug the leak.  You don’t sit there and wait for it to subside, clean it up and then wait for it to happen again.  Mold sets in.  The leak might get bigger.  Other things can come into play that make a simple leak a catastrophe.  Your body is no different.

When your body is subjected to stress, it responds to it.  This can result in either stronger muscles, or deterioration and loss of integrity.  A large part of my job is finding out the perfect balance between just enough and too much load, stress or torque on joints.  You need to consider your body as a whole and what loads it is being subjected to daily, weekly and annually to really figure this out.

And in case you’re wondering, sitting is a load.  Driving is a load.  Weight training is a load.  Yoga is a load.  I remember when I sat through the Yoga Tune Up course (I did not certify because I have no desire to be a yoga instructor) and a room full of body practitioners looked at me like I had two heads when I suggested that yoga poses – especially extreme ones – are still heavy forces through joints.  They are, in case you’re wondering.  Jill Miller says that herself in her articles.  Years ago I wrote a post about why a downward dog is downright dangerous for most people.  It’s HERE.

One big fundamental rule I teach my clients is that they should walk out of a workout feeling better – not worse.  This means they are far more likely to have had an appropriate level of stimulus and will have a better long-term response.  They won’t get worse, they will get better.  Isn’t that the whole idea?

The point of this is that nobody is invulnerable to the rules of the body, even people who have spent their whole life practicing something that is supposedly therapeutic.  Don’t assume that if you have a problem that things like stretching and pounding yourself with a yoga ball is the answer.  It might just make things worse over time.  Seek out someone who knows the rules of the body and can identify a proper strategy to bring your body back into balance and stop overloading tissue.

So the next time you work out, try taking a step back.  Are you pushing through pain?  Have you had a problem for a while and have been ignoring it?  Take a really close stock and tell yourself that you should probably get that taken care of before subjecting your body to even more stress.

Because nobody wants a hip replacement at the age of 45.  At least I don’t.

Feel free to message me or find me on social media if you have something you would like to identify or a question.  Injuries and providing solutions are what I deal with every day.