It's time to apply some real science to rehab. Pain science, an entire scientific field, was founded decades ago, yet its findings and implications have never penetrated to the general public. In fact, many healthcare practitioners are still ignorant of it. It's time we change this.
A real understanding of the field of pain science (see • The Smarter Approach to Injuries and ... ) allows us to do powerful things. Namely, it allows us to shift the locus of control to ourselves. You no longer have to worry about what tissue damage may or may not have occurred with an injury pain science teaches us that we can focus on reducing pain, and that we work on the root cause of the injury as we do so. Pain is not just a symptom of an injury, it IS the injury.
The question then arises: how should we reduce the pain, and increase pain free function, in an effective and pain free manner? Enter, the M.O.V.E.R.S. Method.
I'll elaborate some areas here that I was very brief on in the video.
First, in regards to rest, the reason I had such a hard time finding any papers on rest was because there aren't any. Shocking, right? This needs to be changed. The only good studies I could find were 3 that compared accelerated (early) vs standard rehab in the specific context of ankle sprains. In the video, I said that they all showed that less rest was more helpful which isn't the most accurate, but was the most concise that I could settle on.
More accurately, one study, by Bleakley et. al, which I believe was the best designed out of the 3, showed a clear and significant benefit for early rehab. The second showed a borderline significant benefit for the early rehab group (p=.1), and the third, which was the largest but perhaps weakest methodologically argued no significant benefit for early PT, yet showed borderline significant benefit for early PT on function almost across the board. edit: found a 4th study, also found benefit to early PT for ankle sprains (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1....
I interpret these results to support what my experience has suggested, which is that early & accelerated rehab is more helpful than standard, however, your interpretation is up to you you can certainly use this method and start your active rehab processes at a more standard and delayed time, or you can use them to start testing & rehab almost immediately, as I usually do and generally suggest probably better to be on the safe side and wait until the day after the injury for the more serious ones, as like in the story with my shoulder rehab, it can be really demoralizing if your injury is sensitizing dramatically as you're starting your rehab. One thing is for sure: we need more research here. Whenever you do decide to start the active processes though, if you're able to make progress in reducing pain and increasing function, keep going.
This brings me to the next point that wasn't able to explain explicitly in this video. Part of the brilliance of this method is to bring the focus to inductive reasoning, rather than deductive reasoning. This means going from specific examples to generalities, rather than going from generalities to specifics.
There are some generalities I want you to bring to this method, namely the focus on strength training, working around the injury as well as with it, maintaining cardio, prioritizing movement, mental health, and sleep. But start with those ideas as simple suggestions, rather than concrete rules, and focus on trying specific things and reporting, measuring, and analyzing how they worked for you.
I.e. I tried the static pancake stretch lightly for 60 seconds and now my hamstring injury feels slightly better, vs. stretching is good for my injury because X said so, so I'm going to do Bren's full body stretching routine 3 times in a row and I bet I'll feel good after.
See the difference?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30043...
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20457...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Eccentric vs standard rehab for sprinters paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24620...
To become one of my channel members: / @brenvez
and to download the feel better work pages: https://www.themovementcult.com/rehab...
* The information in this video is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images, and information, contained in this video is for general information purposes only and does not replace a consultation with your own doctor/health professional *
00:00 Student progress
0:30 Why I made this method
2:38 Channel Memberships
3:32 The M.O.V.E.R.S Method
4:33 Make an assessment of cause
5:53 Observe your pain free ability
9:31 Various things may help and hinder
18:27 Eliminate weaknesses
21:21 Return to sport
28:13 Strengthen past baseline
29:06 Foundational change
30:29 Rehab Worksheets