Snowboarding and Going Airborne

Back in January I went snowboarding for the first time in Park City, Utah and it was a blast. Trying something new was challenging. I would be a liar if I said that I crushed it. In fact, the opposite is true. The snowboarding crushed me!

As soon as I stepped out of the lodge into the snow and snapped my feet onto the board I immediately face planted (fail). You would laugh if you were there. I had my second comical moment when I tried to get onto the ski lift. As I tried to sit while it tried to scoop me up, I totally missed the seat and it pushed me forward for my second face plant (lol). 

I finally made it to the top of the *bunny slopes* and I had a blast zooming my way down. Did I know how to slow down and stop? Nope. It was a crash landing every time, but it was so much fun. On my third try down the slope I went too fast and caught the edge of my board and it sent me! I was airborne! For a split second I felt like a free bird, until I quickly realized that I was going to crash on the snow pretty hard! I decided to go limp and allow my body to absorb the impact on my shoulder and hip. 

The experience had me thinking about how lucky I was to escape with light body aches for a few days and nothing serious. It is an experience I won’t forget. In fact, it is something I think about quite often because I know I will try it again, but I will be better at it in the next round!

When dealing with injury and chronic pain, a lesson can be learned from this. It is quite useful to think about what got us into our current situations to begin with, but to shy away from it and avoid whatever activity may have gotten us there is not what we should be doing. We should actively plan ahead and figure out how we can be better from our past experiences. 

Experience is the best teacher, but the greatest lessons are only learned when we reflect and actively decide on how best to improve ourselves. I work with a lot of folks who have taken passive approaches to their injuries. This often looks like heavy manual therapy, massage, electrical stimulation, cupping, scraping, you name it! While I don’t think there is anything wrong with this approach I don’t think it prepares you to re-engage with your body. 

True healing and movement occurs when you are in control. When you make a physical connection through intent and focus the dots begin to connect. This is the birthplace of movement! Although thought and intent is a great place to begin, tell me what professional in any domain you know actually *thinks* hard about what they do when they do it? 

The greats know how to achieve what we commonly label as flow state. This is achieved when we are moving without thought of what we are doing, but only focused on accomplishing the task at hand. This is exactly how rehab should be as well. Your body needs to adapt to tasks and environmental demands/constraints that have you moving thoughtlessly. This is where fear is conquered. 

Here at Revenant Physical Therapy, we aim to initially address the symptoms you feel as we meticulously work our way through the root cause of what is going on. From here we place you in positions where your body or specific tissues have no choice but to tolerate load! One of my great Mentors - Dave O’ Sullivan calls this: Thoughtless and Fearless Movement. 

You know (oftentimes don’t know) that you have made progress when you unconsciously re-engage with a movement you were initially fearful of. Often, I see a client perform this in the clinic without knowing what they just did and when I point it out it is like a big ‘AHA’ moment! I push for less of telling you that you are doing better and more of you figuring it out unconsciously because ultimately you are always in control. You have everything within yourself to get back to the person you aim to be.