Happy Wednesday Reader!

Do you love traveling?

Exploring the sights, sounds, and vibes of a different city. Feeling the hot sun and salty air while chilling on a beach. Checking out places you probably will never see in-person again. Visiting family or friends you haven’t seen in ages.

The kind of travel where we take a bunch of pictures and create lasting memories.

On the flip side, do you hate the actual process of traveling?

Flight delays. TSA backed up for miles. The dreaded middle seat and neck pillow that never actually works. Layovers in O’Hare (IYKYK).

We put up with this unpleasant experience because we know that the actual destination is worth it (hopefully). Sure, we try to mitigate what we can by planning how early to arrive, paying for short cuts (shout out TSA pre-check), and having an airport beer.

We accept that something likely is going to go wrong and cause a delay. It’s the “price of admission” to get the opportunity to travel where we want.

Here a possible mindset shift for ya:

The risk of experiencing pain can be the price of admission to get the opportunity to push your body and do enjoyable things.

I’m not talking about acute injury pain or skyrocketing intense pain that makes you want to check into the ER.

I’m talking about the annoying nagging type of pain that pops up when you work out or play your sport.

If your approach is to entirely avoid the risk of pain or shut everything down the moment you feel pain, you likely aren’t going to be able to push your body to adapt to the level that you need or want.

You give up the opportunity to “travel”.

Just like with the airport, the real long-term play is to accept that pain may be a part of the process.

Your goal is to mitigate it as much as possible while still pushing your body hard to do the things you love.

The ways to mitigate it are many.

Change the tempo, load, variation. Temporarily modify how you move or how much you do. Do challenging rehab to build up the area.

Learn when to push and when to pull back.

But don’t let pain be the reason you give up entirely.

Just like you don’t give up travel destination entirely because you have to deal with the process of traveling.

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​https://embarkphysioperformance.com/embark-blog​

All the best,

Zach