Finding your “Goldilocks Zone” for movement - Lachy Hough, Evolving Pain

Have you ever been told that exercise and movement is generally good for you when you have pain, but been hesitant to start because exercise is also painful for you? Maybe you’ve heard that too much exercise is not good for you, but so is too little? It feels like a contradiction.

The trick to getting started can be finding what is sometimes called your “Goldilocks Zone” or baseline. Remember the story about the girl who liked to steal food from bears and was quite fussy about the temperature of the food she stole? Moral questions aside, the story itself is a helpful one for understanding the balance between doing too much and too little when you’re in pain, injured or recovering from surgery.

Working out the amount of exercise that is “just right” for you at the moment can be very powerful to get you started. Doing too little may not lead to the improvements you’re seeking, whilst doing too much can lead to flare ups and discourage us from future attempts to engage with movement and exercise.

So how do you find your “just right”?

• think about something you do that you find painful or difficult, and that is meaningful to you

• then, see if you can figure out the amount you can do where you might be sore, but you won’t flare up

(Typically, a flare up would be an increase in pain, stiffness or swelling that lasts a bit longer post exercise, often into the next day, or that forces you to take action of some kind)

• remember: you can be “sore, but safe”

(Pain is better thought of as a protective tool, rather than an indicator that you’re doing harm. So, we don’t usually need to avoid pain to be just right, we just want to make sure that whatever increase in pain we feel, that it settles back to its usual level relatively quickly)

What’s next?

Once you’ve found your starting point, the next challenge is to gradually increase your activity over time.

• A consistent, regular increase (once a week is a good start) is important

• Keep to your current level in between increases (avoid the temptation to do more on good days, and less on bad days – though sometimes we just need a rest, and this is important too!)

• It doesn’t matter how small you start; the important thing is gradually doing a little bit more over time

Written by Lachy Hough

Senior Physiotherapist Lachy Hough

To book with Lachy

The team at Evolving Pain can help you find your personal Goldilocks Zone and work with you to get back to the things most important to you. They can also help you understand whether now is the right time for this kind of approach or if there are other things to work on first. 

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