When someone comes in to see me with pain or some nagging issue, I'll ask, "What have you tried to make it feel better? What worked and what has not worked?"

Nine times out of ten, they'll say, "Oh, I tried to rest it".

But their pain still lingers and the problem comes back.

Here's a couple of pointers about rest:

• Rest is good! Rest helps decrease the inflammatory response, which decreases inflammation, and that will decrease the pain. This gives you a nice, good reset button.

• You should be resting, but we recommend only resting for about a week.

• During that week, you should be doing corrective exercises, to help try to determine and treat the root issue.

• What you're doing with your rest week is important to find your deficits and work on correcting them.

• If all you do is rest, those weak muscles that were already weak, get even weaker, because they aren't being used at all. The muscles that were strong, become weaker.

• Also, you don't want to go from 0 to 100 and try to get back to where you were before resting right away.

• It's important to progress slowly back into the activity you were looking to do.

• For help on which corrective exercises to do, talk with a physical therapist to create an exercise plan that helps with your muscle deficits.

Remember, rest is an important way to address any injury, but be smart in correcting the root issues and you'll be back doing what you love without pain in no time.

If you're struggling with not being able to move pain-free and do the things you love to do, feel free to call/text 973-490-4955 to start a conversation and get your questions answered and find out how PAR5PT is different.

Thanks for reading!