When you feel a pain in your body, a pulled muscle or a funky joint or something, do you baby it...or do you work it?

For example, I played volleyball since I was a teenager. In my 20’s and 30’s and early 40’s I played on competitive co-ed leagues. One cold October night, in my early 30’s, I came rushing in to a game late, didn’t take the time to warm up, stripped off my sweats and jumped in the game…and the third play I went down. So totally pulled a muscle in the front of my thigh—(not to be confused with The Back of My Thigh, “Friedrich”) that they stopped the game until I could stand long enough to get off the court. I hobbled out and sat out for about 5 rotations, flexing it, feeling it, working it a little more and a little more….then went back in and finished the game. I babied it on the court some, but I played. It took me 4 months before it felt normal. I pushed it through. Pushed it a little more and a little more every day.
I had a non-athletic friend who was dismayed…said I should have stayed off of it as much as possible. I said, “No. Work it.”
There is another story involving a racket ball game with my then-boyfriend, about two months after my injury, who didn’t think I could get to the ball he’d just hit ‘cuz of my leg, so he just stood there…and I totally WHACKED him with the racket because he was in the way! He laughed in surprised amazement! :) So I whacked him again. He got out of the way after that…

About 5 years ago, after 20 years of professional flat-track racing (and having been in 10 years of “retirement” from the game since then,) my husband gave his last hurrah and got into his last (I hope) motorcycle wreck (Uh…video here if you really want to see it. Fast forward to the very end) Broke his collarbone. Completely. I KNEW I should have taken him in to Wichita…but I didn’t. To this day….his collar bone just….drops off before it gets to his shoulder. There is nothing there. I knew I should have taken him to Wichita. He should have been pinned and casted from the git go…
Well, insurance, and the doctors, said, “You go to this therapy place. You do this therapy.” He went. One time. They had him rolling a tennis ball up and down a wall. They had him doing gentle big arm rolls. He said, “OK. I got the picture.”
He came home and spent the next three months splitting about a cord of wood, by hand, with an ax. He had the big arm swing down, anyway. He’s back to normal. Way better back than he would have been rolling a tennis ball up and down the wall for a year.

So…do you baby an injury, or do you work it?