Whoever keeps doing all of these rain dances better stop quick smart – I think we’ve all just about had enough of the terrible flooding rain for this year. I have been asking people around the clinic whether they’ve seen anything like our recent deluge, and the answer has generally been a resounding “absolutely not”. My heart breaks for the poor people of Northern New South Wales who’ve only just finished cleaning up last year’s floods only to start all over again – this time significantly worse.

The torrent of water that has come from above couldn’t really be planned for by the residents – the sheer speed at which waters rose was too much for any of the infrastructure or homes to handle. Given this, it comes as no surprise that the damage bill is heading into the billions of dollars. It’s totally unfair for all of those poor people, and I can only hope they get the help required to get their lives back on track. 

The damage caused by a sudden, dramatic increase in water is not dissimilar to what can happen in our bodies when something dramatically changes in a short period of time. If you indulge me for a moment, I’m going to use my good friend Jane Doe as an example. Jane Doe has woke up one morning and decided that she was going to pressure clean the outside of her house. Jane thinks to herself that it’s probably a good idea to start small and work her way around the house over a couple of days. However, Jane is like all of us, and once she starts, she can’t stop. Jane gets the whole house done in a day – the cathartic and soothing feeling of cleaning year’s worth of dirt and grime got her to the finish line. 

Jane decides that she is going to reward herself after a long, hard day of pressure cleaning with a Chardonnay. 

 Not just any Chardonnay, though, a top-shelf Chardonnay (the house is looking absolutely fantastic). Jane immediately realises her mistake when she is unable to lift her arm high enough to reach the top shelf Chardonnay, as her shoulder is incredibly painful and weak. Uh-oh. 

Jane kickstarted a sequence of events in her shoulder the minute she picked up her pressure cleaner. Jane’s muscles started firing, heart rate and blood pressure increased, the nervous system turned to attack mode, her brain flicked a switch, and she was ready to annihilate every last speck of dirt she could see. Unfortunately, her brain overtook the rest of her body, ignoring the little twangs, aches and steadily growing fatigue in her body. Jane was too focused on unleashing a one-woman tirade on her house. She forgot that she hadn’t done a full day’s manual labour in, well, ever. 

Jane’s shoulder is now suffering from inflammation, pain and severe lack of top-shelf Chardonnay. We can all handle a little bit of increased load on our bodies. Some people can handle a heck of a lot of loads. Most of us, however, do not tolerate being exposed to a dramatic increase in what we’re used to. Much like my backyard cannot handle a dramatic increase in water.

But alas, we can always prepare ourselves, plan the day, improve our exercise tolerance and don’t let our stubborn brains get the better of us. If you’ve succumbed to your inner instinct to “just get the job done” and are now paying for it – don’t hesitate to give us a call at Physique so we can help you (and empathise with you, because we’ve all done it).