When it comes to pain relief and recovery, a lot of people fall into the trap of chasing quick fixes—temporary solutions that make you feel better for a little while but don’t actually solve the problem.
Real progress, on the other hand, should be done in the quickest fashion, with not a lot of work on your end and provide lasting results that focus on the root causes not just temporary band-aid solutions.
So, how can you tell if you’re on the right track? Here are the four biggest differences between real progress and chasing quick fixes.
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1. Addressing the Root Cause vs. Treating Symptoms
Quick fixes focus on reducing pain right now—whether it’s a massage that feels great in the moment, an adjustment that provides instant relief, or pain meds that numb discomfort.
This is similar to just pumping air into your tires when there’s a nail stuck in the tread. There’s still an air leak – just as there is still dysfunction or a larger issue at hand.
But if you don’t address muscle imbalances, fascial restrictions, or movement dysfunction, that pain is coming back. Real progress means targeting the source of the problem so you don’t have to rely on constant symptom management.
Sometimes you have to reverse engineer pain. If you have pain in your fingers but you can’t recreate it by moving or stretching the fingers, you have to follow the nerve up to where it begins i.e. the neck.
2. Temporary Relief Doesn’t Equal Long Term Gains
Ever feel like you’re on a cycle of relief and relapse? That’s a sign of chasing quick fixes.
A single deep tissue massage, chiropractic adjustment, or ice pack might provide relief, but real progress happens when you combine medical massage, myofascial release, and corrective exercises in a structured plan.
The right strategy retrains your body to function better over time, rather than just soothing it in the short term.
There is research that says NSAID’s can disrupt and slow the healing process (restricts collagen growth – needed to repair tissue). These provide short term reduction of pain but can have long term negative effects.
3. Function Better Over Feeling Better
It’s largely important to have gains in important aspects of your life over simply just feeling better.
A quick fix might reduce tightness or stiffness, but if you still have limited range of motion, weakness, or poor movement mechanics, you haven’t truly improved.
This is even more important if the movement(s) that caused your pain or injury in the first place isn’t properly dealt with. This means it keeps coming back.
Real progress restores proper movement, allowing you to get back to the activities you love without constantly worrying about flare-ups.
4. Treating Pain as the Problem vs. Seeing It as a Signal
Pain isn’t the enemy—it’s a signal from your body that something is wrong. Even more than that, it is the by product of something else (or symptom) that is going on.
Quick fixes try to silence that signal, while real progress means that we are addressing the real cause head on.
If your pain keeps returning, your body is trying to tell you that something needs to be addressed. Instead of just shutting it down, focus on finding and fixing the underlying dysfunction.
👉 Try this: The next time you feel pain, don’t ignore it or immediately mask it with a quick fix. Instead, take note of what you were doing before it started, how intense it is, and whether certain movements make it better or worse. Over time, these will clue you in and help you prevent it from happening further.
To sum it all up:
- Pain should be looked at as an ally. It tries to tell you that something is wrong. It’s good practice to not inhibit it with NSAID’s or treating it by itself. There’s a reason why you’re in pain. Treat that.
- Go for broke treating the the root cause, not the symptom. Don’t put air into a tire that has a hole in it.
- Prioritize functioning better over feeling better. If a specific movement caused your pain – that needs to be changed so that it doesn’t happen the next time you do it!
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