I intend this be the first in a series of posts on injuries, prevention of and management/treatment of. This will be mostly geared toward outdoor educators or guides, but will have information and thoughts that apply to everyone, whether you use your body on the job or not. This should not be taken as professional medical advice, I am not formally trained or certified in anything medical, except CPR and WFR. This is simply an interest and passion of mine.
For me this is the intersection of multiple experiences over many years, both mine own and that of others. First I want to give you an idea of why this topic is so important and then later in other posts some ideas for how to deal with issues.
If I had only known (and believed!) early! I consider myself to be an active individual and have been so most of my life. In elementary school I loved recess, kickball, basketball games and in PE class I actually liked the Presidential Fitness test! I know - I was what some may call a tomboy. In fourth grade I decided on my own that I wanted to play on basketball team and I asked my mom to go to school and sign me up for the girls county league. That first team I played on was the Pink Flamingos, yes our jerseys were pink! That started a several year long love of the game of basketball and I played on county teams and school teams consistently through my 12th grade year in high school. In those days I don't ever remember getting injured too bad - I had some minor shin splints and many ankle sprains but hey I was young and I always bounced back quickly. Over the years I also competed on a flat-water sprint kayaking team, and dabbled with karate and track. I also discovered outdoor sports from going to summer camp - backpacking, rock climbing, and canoeing. Further exposure to the outdoors in college years and beyond also got me into mountain biking, trail running and mountaineering.
Now in my early thirties I definitely do not "bounce back" so easy. I have more aches and pains, especially in joint areas. If I had only known that a few simple, yet daily routines and techniques could have prevented some of or all of these aches and pains I would have signed up 10 years ago. But the problem was, I never really thought they would happen to me! But unfortunately our bodies are not made to last forever and they eventually wear out. The good news however is that we can slow down that process and in some cases prevent it - like the guy who got his Volvo P1800 to run for 500,000 and beyond! With some disciplined maintenance to our bodies we can get farther than we think!
These sports were of course hobbies until I started to work and receive a paycheck for "guiding" people in the outdoors. What I have realized in only about 14 years or so of working outdoors is that we outdoor educators and guides are a lot harder on our bodies and demand more out of them than the average person and that can lead to our bodies becoming more abused at a earlier age. Makes sense right? Well for some reason this took me years to realize on a conscious level. I am a huge advocate today of bringing this information to outdoor educators and guides. WE HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES FIERCELY. If we don't, we may work ourselves out of a job and out of what we love to do, which is being active outside. Sadly I have had some friends who have had to give up outdoor education or significantly scale back due to a unresolved injury at a very early age. I have many friends and colleagues who deal with physically pain on a daily basis and many of them have "younger" joints than I do.
Recently Glenn has been seeing a PT for tendinitis in both his elbows and knees (due to chronic issues from working outdoors for many years) and his PT put things into perspective and basically said 'you are a professional athlete, not in the sense that you compete but in that you make your living with your body'. However, he pointed out further, 'the major difference in the profession athlete and you when it comes to injuries is that they have an entourage of sports medicine doctors, trainers, and equipment at their disposal to both prevent and treat issues that come up and you don't'. This has made me think recently about myself and the people I work with and our culture of self care. Typically we put our bodies under tremendous physical, mental and emotional stress which makes us vulnerable to injury and illness, we work mostly on contracts and therefore are not eligible for healthcare insurance programs and have trouble affording them. When injury or worst, chronic pain strikes we are largely uneducated about what to do or how to afford healthcare.
Early in my career as an outdoor educator I did not develop the discipline to stretch everyday and I am sure that it has led in one way, to my now extremely tight neck/shoulder/upper back issue that I am just now working out. I am not only talking about stretching for self care, that is merely an example of something that we can do proactively to prevent chronic pain and injury. Fatigue, sleep problems, stress (mental, emotional) can overload our bodies and manifest in physical symptoms. Don't be that person - you can prevent (and fix) tweaky shoulders, ankles, knees and backs sooner than later. Love yourself, self care: Let's start today!
Working on the river: paddlers have some big guns but horrible internally rotated shoulders, yuk!, which can be a source of shoulder injuries
