Dr. Layne Norton

But what you probably should do is exposure therapy.

So that heavy squat, that's like sticking me in a room with spiders, right?

It's traumatic.

But if you wanted to manage somebody's fear of spiders, maybe you put them in a room with a spider that's under a glass case and they just sit there with the spider.

And then over time, they bring it closer.

Over time, they take the case off.

Over time, you get better at managing that.

Pain is kind of the same way.

So when I dealt with this, so I was dealing with that as well as hip pain that prevented me from really doing any kind of heavy squats.

And so I went in the gym one day after reading about exposure therapy and I said, okay, is there a squat variation that I can do that's low enough pain that I can touch it without it getting worse?

Because the research shows like if you're recovering from an injury –

First off, you have to get the initial like high pain sensitivity under control.

And so that may involve rest and just walking or active recovery.

But once it's under control enough, you kind of want to touch the pain without doing enough to make it worse.

And the more you do this, the better you get it kind of knowing when to walk that line.

And so I found, okay, I can't do a full squat.

with my normal velocity, but I can do a slow tempo squat to a pin that's about six inches above parallel and then do a pause and do a controlled ascent.

And I can do that.

And that, that seems to be okay.

So I started there and every week, if I could, if my, if I felt okay, I take the pin down or increase the weight or increase the velocity.