It’s misleading and it’s frightening but it just can’t stop.
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have them, but the reality is, they’re useful. It’s just unfortunate that sometimes we misinterpret their meaning.
What am I talking about?
Names and labels.
As human beings, we like to give things a name. It makes things quicker.
Like if I was talking about a particular place on the planet, it would help if you knew if I was talking about somewhere on land or sea, which continent I meant, which country I meant, which region I meant, which town, district and street.
Giving names to things when you’re describing a place is useful.
It quickly answers the question, “where is…”
And it’s exactly the same for your pain.
If I said to another professional “my client has IT Band Syndrome in the left leg”, they would know exactly the position on the body, what type of pain it was and the types of situations that the pain might happen in, if it wasn’t constant.
But when it comes to names of pain, as patients, we think of them as labels – and that’s NOT good.
A name is something we use to describe a person, place or thing. It’s just descriptive. But a label, that’s a whole different story.
A label has a good or bad implication attached to it.
And by far the biggest misconception that millions of fitness enthusiasts all over the world have, is that the NAME of a symptom is a LABEL.
Let me explain using IT Band Syndrome as an example.
When a medical professional tells you that you have IT Band Syndrome, they are merely pointing out, in the quickest way they know how, where your pain is and the common traits associated with pain in that location.
There’s no implication attached to it. It’s just a description.
But as patients, we don’t necessarily know this. So, because we don’t understand and it’s got some fancy name, we’re a bit daunted by it and assume it must be bad, so we attach an implication to it – making IT Band Syndrome a LABEL, not a NAME.
Once a name has transitioned to a label, we attach all sorts of beliefs to it. In most cases, by far and away the biggest belief is that we’ll have this “syndrome” (or “itis” in other cases) forever. Like it’s some kind of disease that we’ll be stuck with for the rest of our lives.
And that simply isn’t true.
Let’s imagine you were told that “the outside of your thigh is too tight and its pulling on your knee, making it sore”
How would you feel about that?
Different to being told you have IT Band Syndrome I’m guessing.
But it’s EXACTLY the same thing.
It’s just that with a fancy “syndrome” name, we believe it’s a bad thing, and when we’re told that “it’s too tight” we believe there must be a solution.
Crazy isn’t it?
It’s not the “syndrome” itself that will kill your performance, it’s the belief or misconception you attach to it that will.
If you believe you have a problem that is difficult to fix, you’ll spend much longer away from the sport you love because you’ll be scared to flare your symptoms up again once they’ve settled down.
But if you believe it’s easy to fix, you’ll feel much more confident in your training, you’ll just be more aware of how your body is coping with it.
And I’m pretty sure that I could guess which one you’d choose if you had a choice.
And you DO have a choice.
Discover more with my FREE Video called “3 Secrets the Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know About Fixing Your Own Knee Pain” here and let’s start making a real difference!