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“Can you keep exercising while you’re being treated?” is one of the top three questions people ask, and it usually arrives about four minutes into a first appointment, phrased apologetically, as if wanting to keep playing hockey were a character flaw. It isn’t. These conversations happen in physiotherapy in Waterloo and in chiropractic care in Waterloo. Whether it’s a Tuesday-night league, a 6 a.m. gym habit, a dog who does not accept excuses, or the walk that is the only quiet twenty minutes in your day, that activity is part of your life, and it belongs in the conversation.
So let me answer honestly, starting with the limits.
I can’t clear you from a blog post
Not being coy, I promise. Whether you should keep doing a specific thing depends on what’s going on, what stage it’s at, what else is happening with your health, and how your symptoms have been behaving, and a blog post knows none of that about you (a blog post has never examined anyone).
What I can do is take the question apart, so that when you ask a clinician, you’re asking a much better version of it.
“Just rest it” stopped being the default a long time ago
For many uncomplicated episodes of low back pain, staying active offers small benefits over resting in bed.123 Small, but real, and consistent enough that “lie down until it goes away” is no longer where most care starts.
Two limits on that, and both matter. It’s a statement about uncomplicated episodes: major trauma, progressive neurological changes, systemic illness and other warning signs point somewhere else entirely. And “stay active” is not the same thing as a specific exercise prescription; it’s about not shutting your whole life down while you wait.
“Push through it” isn’t a rule either
I want to be even-handed here, because the pendulum has swung hard (it always does, doesn’t it?).
For an acute non-specific back flare, the evidence that a specific exercise programme reliably speeds recovery compared with no treatment is very uncertain.4 So the confident version of the modern advice (do these exercises and you’ll get better faster) outruns what’s actually been shown. Movement you can tolerate is reasonable, and worth supporting. A guaranteed shortcut it is not.
Both slogans are doing the same unhelpful thing: replacing a decision about you with a rule about everyone.
The useful question is what and how much, not whether
In practice, “should I stop?” almost never has a yes-or-no answer. It has a dial.
Rehabilitation generally works by progressing movement you can tolerate toward the strength, endurance, coordination and capacity your real life actually demands.5 So the honest version of the question sounds more like this: which parts of this activity, at what volume, at what intensity, this week? A run might come off the list while the walk stays. Lifting might continue with the load changed. The class might stay, and the one movement in it that flares things up might not.
What goes on the dial is individual. Tissue, severity, stage, medical history and what you’re training for all change it, which is why nobody should be handing you a dose through a screen.6
Does it have to be completely pain-free?
Not always, and this is the part people most want a clean answer to (honestly, I get why).
Some discomfort during exercise for a long-standing musculoskeletal problem doesn’t automatically mean you’re causing damage.7 Hold that loosely, though: the evidence behind it is low-certainty, and it is emphatically not permission to ignore what your body is telling you. Escalating symptoms, anything new and neurological, or anything that reduces what you can do needs reassessment, not determination.
The practical version: pay attention to how you are the next morning, not just how you feel mid-session. A response that settles is telling you something different from a response that builds day over day.
Some restrictions are not negotiable, and you won’t find them here
There are situations where a specific activity genuinely needs to stop for a while: certain injuries, certain stages of healing, certain medical conditions, certain procedures.6 When that applies to someone, it comes out of an assessment, and it’s specific to them.8
That’s the category a general article can never cover, and it’s why this page under-promises on purpose: a breezy answer that’s wrong for one reader isn’t a kindness.
General activity guidance is not your clearance either
Public-health guidance recommends that adults be regularly active, and it says two sensible things I’d echo to almost anyone: start with small amounts and increase gradually, and talk to a health professional about what suits your own limitations and treatment plan.9
That’s population guidance for general health. It is not rehabilitation advice, and it does not know about your ankle. “Adults should be active” and “you can do that specific thing this week” are different sentences from different sources.
The most useful thing you can bring
Tell us what you actually do. Not the sanitised version, the real one.
The training block you’re in the middle of, the race you entered, the league that starts in three weeks, the physical part of your job you haven’t mentioned yet, the thing you’ve quietly been doing anyway (no judgement, truly). A plan built around your real week is one you might actually follow. A plan built around a week you don’t have is theatre.
If your question is really about getting back to something you’ve already stopped, returning to work, the gym or sport is the better read.
When to stop and get reassessed
Stop and get reassessed if you have a new injury, symptoms that are escalating instead of settling, any progressive change in numbness, weakness or coordination, significant swelling or a joint giving way, anything involving your chest or your breathing, feeling unwell in yourself, or a loss of function you didn’t have before.810 This list isn’t exhaustive, and it isn’t a diagnostic tool.
And to say it once more, plainly, because it matters more than anything else on this page: this post is general education, not clearance. It does not tell you that you may keep training, return to sport, drive, or go back to work. Only an assessment of your situation can speak to your situation.
Book an assessment. Bring your actual schedule!
Take care,
Dr. Katie