Propel Fitness Journal, Issue 072
I’ve been toying with this idea recently.
I call it “Dimmer not a switch”.
Most of the time, we view situations as dichotomous relationships — i.e. It’s either A or B.
In reality, there are many, many options in front of us and the decisions more accurately lie along a spectrum.
Flip a switch and you get two options.
On or off. Light or dark.
Nothing in between.
That’s how most lifters make decisions about their body after an injury.
Almost Everything Runs On A Dial
Pain shows up, so you stop.
Pain fades, so you go.
The bar feels heavy, so you rack it and go home.
You’re flipping a switch on a system that runs on a dial.
Take pain.
The switch asks one thing — is it there or not.
The dial asks how much, where, for how long, and whether it climbs or settles as you keep working.
A 4/10 that fades by your second set is a green light to keep loading.
A 7/10 that builds every rep is a different setting entirely.
Load works the same way.
Heavy was never the problem.
The setting is — how heavy, how often, how close to the edge the dose has to land before your body bothers to adapt.
Rest, too.
Shutting everything down is just the switch flipped the other direction.
The useful question is how much to pull back, on which movements, and for how long.
Range of motion after an injury.
You don’t have to pick between avoiding the movement and full-sending it.
You pick how much range, under how much load — and you turn it up from there.
A Few Things Really Are Switches
Some things don’t have a dial.
A fully ruptured tendon is either reattached by a surgeon or it isn’t.
Numbness, a joint that won’t bear weight at all, loss of bowel or bladder control — those are off, full stop, go to the ER.
Telling a real switch apart from a dial you’ve been treating as one is most of the skill.
But that list is short. Like really, really short.
Most of what scares you in recovery isn’t on the list.
You’ve been handed a switch and told that’s all there is.
Find the dial.
Then learn what each setting does to you — your injury, your training age, your tolerance.
That’s the whole game.
– Dan
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