Back To School, Back To The Gym
By Rev. Dr. Daryl C. Greene

Amid all the many research theories, Hollywood promotions, and magazine suggestions, one thing is crystal clear. Exercise is extremely important. And if you have chronic pain, exercise should be a fact of life.
Ellen Mohr-Catalano
The Chronic Pain Control Workbook

August is here. It is time for kids to go back to school, and time for us all to get back to our regular routines- including going back to the gym.

Nothing is more important to achieving optimum health than exercise. Likewise, physical exercise is essential when it comes to healing or coping with disabilities. And as Ellen Catalano states, "If you have chronic pain, exercise should be a fact of life". Yet most people who are faced with health problems, especially those who suffer with chronic pain, feel that they are exempt from doing physical exercise. Some even become totally passive, believing that all they need to do is to sit back and pray their way to healing. Is this so for you?

Paul said ". . . Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12). When it comes to coping with health challenges and seeking healing, why not take Paul's teaching literally. "Workout" your salvation: adopt a regular exercise program.

When you are in pain, your muscles tense and cramp up. Your tendons draw up. If you do not stretch and strengthen your muscles, your limbs will atrophy and may even become permanently twisted. The truth is, "use it, or lose it".

Don't think that doing housework or yard work is a substitute for doing your therapeutic workout. Walking around or moving boxes at work does not count either. Your exercise program should include stretching, strengthening exercises including calisthenics and weight training, and aerobics such as walking or biking, which strengthen your heart and your circulatory system. Have a physical therapist or a personal trainer show you what exercises to do, and how to do them with the proper form.

So if you want to feel better, suffer less, and have more energy, bite the bullet. Get off your butt. Get off your painkillers and anti-depressants, which make it impossible to do a good workout, and get back to the gym. If you take it slow and make working out a fact of life, SURPRISE! You will not only feel better in body, but also in mind, and spirit.





Dr. Greene is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and a resident of Richmond, IN. He is also the author of Feeling Better: The Wisdom of the Doc, You Can Feel Better: How to cope with chronic pain and physical disabilities, and co-author of Walking Free: the Nellie Zimmerman Story.


For further information about his books, please visit www.densmorereid.com

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