INTRODUCTION
Let’s address this head-on:
If you’re dealing with a long-term injury, rest won’t help you.
Why?
Long-term injuries aren’t just about damaged tissues that need time to heal. The real problem goes deeper and often involves one (or more) of these three issues:
- Sensitization: Your nervous system has become hypersensitive, interpreting normal movement as dangerous and triggering unnecessary pain.
- Weakness or Instability: Key muscles or joints aren’t strong enough to handle the demands you’re placing on them, causing pain signals when they can’t cope.
- Poor Movement Mechanics: The way you’re moving doesn’t match your body’s structure, putting unnecessary stress on vulnerable joints.
Rest doesn’t fix any of these.
Sure, it might reduce your pain temporarily (because you’re avoiding the pain-causing activity)… But the moment you return to normal training?
Your pain will be back.
And that’s because the root issue behind your pain is still there, waiting to remind you it’s unresolved.
5 More Problems With Rest
We’ve established rest is a poor solution for long term injuries and joint issues…
But hypothetically:
What would happen if you chose to rest your injury, or avoid activity, because you were struggling to find an effective solution?
The outcomes aren’t great:
1) Strength & Muscle loss
Prolonged rest leads to muscle atrophy. When you’re not challenging your body, it gets weaker — and weaker muscles mean less support for your joints.
This can increase pain over time.
2) Joint stiffness & Tightness
When you stop challenging muscles, they become weaker, lose conditioning, and feel tighter.
This isn’t because they’re shortened… it’s your body saying “hey, this muscle is fragile, we need to be careful!”.
3) Psychological impact
Prolonged rest essentially means not training or being active for weeks to months on end… which can leave you feeling frustrated, anxious, hopeless, or even depressed.
Especially if you value being fit and active.
4) Increased Fear
It seems logical to avoid pain-causing movements.
But the problem is… you become more fearful and hesitant of doing those activities as time goes on… which makes it harder to get back to the activities you love.
5) Delayed recovery
Not only does all of the above make you a more unhealthy, weaker, and less fit version of yourself over time…
It also leaves you further from resolving the root issue, which can delay recovery by months or even years.
When is rest useful?
Now despite the negative nature of this article, I need to be fair and say rest does have its place — for acute injuries.
What do I mean?
Well if you’ve just been injured, rest will absolutely help you reduce swelling, inflammation, and allow tissues to heal.
But for long-term pain?
Rest is a band-aid at best — and a roadblock at worst.
How do I know all this?
My exploration into long-term injuries began when I injured my shoulder and wrist almost a decade ago.
You name it, I tried it:
Physiotherapy
Osteopathy
Chiropractic
Stretches
Massage
Cortisone
And most notably? Rest.
But I didn’t make any meaningful progress (for years)… until I ditched the symptom-focussed approaches above, and started addressing the root issue.
Aside from personal experience…
I’ve spent the last decade helping clients across the globe overcome injuries that no one else could fix.
And here’s what I’ve learned:
- Rest doesn’t fix the underlying issue. It might reduce pain for a while, but it doesn’t address what’s causing the problem.
- Most clients try prolonged rest before working with me. But rest only delays the inevitable… you’ll eventually need to tackle the root cause if you want lasting results.
SO What Now?
If you’re stuck in a cycle of rest and relapse…
It’s time to try something different.
If you’re struggling with an injury, persistent pain, or joint issue… Why not schedule a call to see if I can help?
We’ll discuss your situation in depth, identify why your previous attempts haven’t worked, and then create a game plan to get you out of pain and back to full function.
