DOMS vs. Injury

[HammerOfJustice]

Good afternoon Marines,

My RSS is currently under inspection, so poolees are on order to not contact their recruiters if at all avoidable. My doctor's office isn't responding either after 50 minutes on hold, so if anyone has any experience/advice to offer, I would greatly appreciate it. If the best advice is to wait until my doctor is available and set up an appointment, that's fine too. I'm being impatient because I have a month to ship and I don't want to stop my workouts if I can avoid that without injury.

Roughly a week ago, I woke up with a sore back, around my left shoulder blade specifically. Having been cautioned that delayed onset muscle soreness is a common symptom of working out after a period of inactivity, I ignored it as best I could and maintained my regular workout, but with a longer warm-up and stretch period as advised by the DEP workout guide.

A week later, my back is still in pain to the extent that I can still feel the soreness at rest, and the pain gets sharper if I attempt to perform any exercises that would stress that region (pullups, pushups, crunches...), so I am nervous to proceed further.

I'm concerned that this may be an injury and that only a doctor will be able to diagnose/render treatment, but if this soreness is typical and "everyone's been there", maybe I'm just not doing the right thing to recover.

Any suggestions?

Thank you for your time and your service.

[ameriken]

There's typical soreness, and there's injury. With normal soreness you hurt, but are able to complete a workout routine without the pain getting severe. Sometimes in fact the pain actually feels good because you know your workout is giving you results.

But when the pain prohibits a workout or a particular exercise, or if it is localized to one muscle or area that is giving you more problems, I would suggest laying off the routine and definitely see the doc.

There was another thread with a poolee that had an injury and he too ended up going to the Dr.

The one thing you DON'T want to have happen is the injury continues to worsen and they pick up on it at boot camp, which could delay your graduation.

[ameriken]

Here's the other thread: http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85563

[HammerOfJustice]

There's typical soreness, and there's injury. With normal soreness you hurt, but are able to complete a workout routine without the pain getting severe. Sometimes in fact the pain actually feels good because you know your workout is giving you results.

But when the pain prohibits a workout or a particular exercise, or if it is localized to one muscle or area that is giving you more problems, I would suggest laying off the routine and definitely see the doc.

There was another thread with a poolee that had an injury and he too ended up going to the Dr.

The one thing you DON'T want to have happen is the injury continues to worsen and they pick up on it at boot camp, which could delay your graduation.

Thank you Sergeant, I figured my situation may be similar to the poolee with the neck problem, but it never hurts to ask.

I'm going to keep trying to get ahold of my Doc and see if he can fix me up. If not though, I'm going to contact my recruiter and delay my ship date until I'm better; it's not worth wasting the DI's time to send a broke... well you know the rest.

[Petz]

yeah... strained muscle....

drink LOTS of fluids... generally for every quart of water you should drink one of those smaller gatorades for the electrolytes.

you should also add a few shakes of salt to your food (electrolytes) so your body will retain the water in your muscles and not dehydrate them while you are sweating like a pig.

[HammerOfJustice]

yeah... strained muscle....

drink LOTS of fluids... generally for every quart of water you should drink one of those smaller gatorades for the electrolytes.

you should also add a few shakes of salt to your food (electrolytes) so your body will retain the water in your muscles and not dehydrate them while you are sweating like a pig.

Thank you for that advice as well Staff Sergeant.

As an update, I saw the doctor and he referred me to physical therapy.

[Petz]

well, that's sports medicine... kinda.

same area... difference, less specific to sports related injury