Optimal self-rehabilitation for soft tissue injuries

Hi there! If you've been following me for the last couple of weeks, you'll know I dislocated a toe severely right before we left for our Disney vacation. It's not broken. I had an x-ray, and it's healing, but many protocols have changed. Almost everyone thinks you should rest, use compression, elevate, ibuprofen, NSAIDs, and other treatments for inflammation, but some of the research is beginning to shift.

Stabilizing The Injured Area

I deliberately didn't isolate or use anti-inflammatories. I just let my body do it. When I was at Disney, I wore a platform shoe to try to keep the toe stable because I knew I was clocking a ton of mileage, and I couldn't slow us down as a family because we had a lot to do see all the rides in the park. For the first five days, I deliberately kept the foot stable. Then, at night, I would take it off and work on mobilizing it. I would put Arnica on it, a jade roller, and roll the top and bottom of my foot to get the blood flowing.

I realized last week that my foot felt significantly better every time I was done teaching, which meant demonstrating a lot. The swelling has gone down a ton this week. I'm not wearing the boot and intentionally moving the toe a little bit more. My gait is still disrupted but significantly better overall, and the bruising has disappeared. So part of that is time. But I think part of that is because I'm moving the area gently, not loading at 100%, but gently.

Self Rehabilitate

There's this old story about Julio from Gyrotonic exercise where he claims he rehabilitated all his injuries. He was on this island, and when he injured his ankle, he would tape up the ankle and not move it for several days. Then he'd untape the ankle and see how it felt. And in his opinion, it always hurt. To manipulate the joint, he made lots of circles, flex, and point, a motion that I instinctively do with my toe. And then the joint felt better.

He hypothesized that movement was the healer. It’s not always stabilizing. This is different in a bone situation because, again, with bones, we tend to need to stabilize to heal. But soft tissue injuries, especially movement, can be the healer.

I'm learning that I stubbed my toe a little bit this morning, which really hurt. When I was entering my last session, it was painful. It feels so much better now that I taught my class, night and day. And because I get to come up with the repertoire when I teach, we're doing lots of foot and ankle mobility. Lots of foot and ankle turning and calf stretching. Calf stretching is one of the things I love to do. It feels so good because my toes are supported over a device, and I'm getting a calf stretch, which I don't think I'm moving that way very well.

So, to move or not to move an injury? I usually say stabilize soft tissue injuries and start slow. Start with slow light loads. I'm using my finger to push my toe against it to build strength up, down, left, right. I'm just checking in with my range of motion. And take it slow and easy, but try to bring some movement back to the site as soon as possible. So try it and let me know how it goes! Alright, happy Monday.