Fear of Movement: and Why It’s Holding You Back
By: Kelsie Mazur, DPT
One of the biggest things I see holding people back in their rehab isn’t their injury: it’s their fear of movement. You know the feeling; You hurt yourself doing something, maybe it was lifting, running, or even just bending over to pick something up and suddenly, you’re terrified to move that way again. Maybe you’ve been told by someone to avoid certain motions, or worse, you start to believe that moving in certain ways will make things worse.
This fear of movement is real. Unfortunately, it often becomes a bigger problem than the original injury itself. “Fear of movement” is huge in rehab, and most people don’t even realize how much it’s running the show.
Let me tell you about a patient I saw recently, let's call her Sarah. Sarah came in after experiencing consistent lower back pain. She’d had this issue on and off for years, but after one bad flare-up, she was convinced she could never move the way she used to. She was afraid to bend over, squat, or even twist. Every time she felt any sort of discomfort, her brain would tell her: “This is it, you’ve really messed it up this time.”
That’s exactly where fear of movement starts. When pain and fear are allowed to take over, we start avoiding the very movements that will help us recover. Sarah’s fear was making her more sensitive to the pain, and it wasn’t allowing her to get stronger. The longer she avoided movement, the weaker she became. Her back muscles were stiff, and she wasn’t challenging her body enough to get back to where she wanted to be.
But here’s the thing, Sarah’s body wasn’t fragile! She was just stuck in a pattern of fear. After we started working together, we broke down her movements into smaller, manageable pieces. We didn’t rush it. We started with exercises that weren’t threatening to her and then built up her confidence, step by step. As she began to see that pain didn’t always mean harm, her fear started to fade. Slowly, Sarah began to trust her body again… and her back pain started to improve.
This doesn’t mean that you should ignore pain or push through discomfort recklessly. That’s not what I’m saying at all. But the truth is that avoiding movement because you’re afraid of pain doesn’t make you safer, it just makes you weaker. And weakness and stiffness will only make things worse over time. The key is learning to move again gradually and intelligently. Pain might still show up sometimes, but it’s not the enemy. It’s a signal that something needs attention, and it doesn’t always mean you’ve done something wrong.
The real solution is to start moving in a controlled, progressive way. Gradually exposing your body to the movements you’ve been avoiding, starting small and building up over time. As you begin to move, you’ll regain trust in your body. You’ll get stronger, your range of motion will improve, and your confidence will grow. The fear of movement starts to disappear because you’ve proven to yourself that you can move without the world falling apart.
If you’ve been stuck in that cycle of fear, know that you’re not alone and you’re not broken. Your body is resilient. Sometimes it just needs a little help to remember that. Don’t let fear keep you from getting back to the life you want to live. You’ve got this.
Did you know that we offer free 1-on-1 injury screens? Wattage Physical Therapy will take an in depth look at your ergonomics, posture, muscle tone, muscle weaknesses, and movement patterns to create a plan for YOU. If this article intrigues you, you can directly email me, Kelsie at Kelsie@wattagept.com. I would be happy to help you start the process of living a life free from pain.