Did you ever watch those 1980’s exercise tapes or the P90x DVDs? The new version of these exercise clips are the instagram and youtube fitness influencers with titles like, “Instantly fix your back pain” or “The 3 best exercises to fix your knee pain”. They may be showing you the BEST way to move or lift, but general movement is better than beating yourself up about having “bad” movement.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for giving exercises to help movement. The current evidence is pretty clear that there are many exercises that can significantly reduce joint pain. The coolest studies are showing a link to overall exercise reducing all-cause mortality and diseases across body systems. 

What I don’t love is the videos when they give you absolute ways to work a muscle. Something like saying you ‘HAVE to keep your shoulders exactly 80 degrees from your chest’ or ‘focus on ONLY breathing out when you do this stretch’. There can be benefits to getting a maximal stretch or contraction out of a muscle but overall… just get it moving!

I get a lot of exercise questions from patients that I can help by giving small corrections but more often than not, I congratulate people on doing their exercise homework. It’s always better to get some motion through a joint in a way that is 80% accurate than to stop the motion altogether because it’s not 100% correct. 

So don’t worry about having the absolute best form or movement! If the movement isn’t causing you a lot of pain or worsening an injury, it’s most likely helping you by sending the right signals to the brain that it is moving. The more we can change the pain signals from an injury to the brain into movement signals, the better the healing does in the long run. 

Love the motion, ditch the perfection,

Dr. Cole Maranger