When Pain Doesn’t Mean You Need to Change Everything
Whenever something starts hurting, our first instinct is usually to do something about it. We look for different strengthening, stretching, or self-massage exercises, try to figure out what’s going on, and modify activity or stop altogether until it settles. This is a completely understandable reaction, and something I’ve done for my numerous injuries. But over the past few months, I’ve been doing almost the opposite with my own ankle
I started to develop some pain on the outside of my left ankle throughout the course of my first baseball game this year back in March. I noticed it every time I got into my defensive position, but I was still able to run. After the game, I would get this painful stretching feeling whenever I would point my toes down and inward. I was a bit worried about continuing my running because one of my teammates had what sounded like a similar issue and couldn’t run because of it. However, because I was still able to run in the game without pain, I figured I’d give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t get worse with running; I could feel it throughout the run, but I think it actually felt better by the end. Walking around and doing all of my other exercises had no impact; it was literally just getting into my ready position in baseball that aggravated.
I played around with some exercises at home to try and load it like I do with most injuries, but nothing was really working for me— I knew I was loading the muscles, but just not in the direct way I like to during injury rehab. In looking at my running program and baseball schedule, I thought, “what is this actually stopping me from doing?” There wasn’t really anything, so I decided the best plan was to just keep monitoring it rather than overhaul everything. Here’s why.
It wasn’t getting progressively worse. Despite playing double-headerd and some intense weekly training, my ankle wouldn’t feel any worse during play or after. Overall, day-to-day it wasn’t becoming more painful. Even climbing down the steep hills of Mount Zeus in Greece, which was painful at the time, did not make it worse afterwards.
There were only two movements that aggravated it. The pain only appeared in two situations: getting into my defensive ready position in baseball, and actively pointing my toes down and in while sitting or lying down. Everything else - including running, hitting, lifting, and walking - was pain-free.
It wasn’t affecting what I could do. Pain isn’t the only thing that matters - function does too. My ankle wasn’t limiting any of my athletic and daily activities.
It was still being loaded. Even though I couldn’t find a good exercise that I felt was directly targeting the painful area, I wasn’t avoiding loading it. I was still running, playing baseball, strength training, and walking daily. This meant my ankle was still experiencing regular loading.
No obvious red flags. Nothing stood out as something that needed immediate attention - no acute mechanism, swelling, redness, heat, numbness, night pain or inability to weight-bear.
Time is part of rehab whether we like it or not. Whether I exercised it specifically or not, healing still happens. A big part of recovery, even with good rehab, is the body’s natural healing process, which takes time. Tendons especially (which is what I think this is) are notorious for taking weeks or months to be pain-free, so I’ve had to manage expectations.
It’s important to emphasize that this should not be the default approach to every injury. This decision was based on how my symptoms behaved over time. If the pain had become more limiting, progressively worsened, or stopped improving, I would have changed course by reducing my activity and adding more targeted rehab. This wasn’t a case of me avoiding rehab, but rather matching my approach to how my symptoms were responding.
We often assume every painful body part needs a sophisticated rehab plan. Sometimes it does, but sometimes it simply needs appropriate loading, time, and careful monitoring. The key for me was not panicking or worrying about my ankle, continuing to use it as much as I could, and being prepared to modify if something changed. Good rehab isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what’s necessary, and knowing when nothing more is needed.
