No Pain, No Gain?
We’ve all heard the saying “no pain, no gain”, and I personally think that saying is foolish.
If we’re talking about true pain, it is certainly not a requirement to become stronger, healthier, or more fit and is definitely not a requirement for recovering from an injury.
If you’re instead referring to the discomfort and hardships that you may experience as you explore something new or grow as a person, then I can get down with that.
With that being said, just about all of us have experienced pain at some point in our lives. Most of us don’t particularly enjoy being in pain, and even less of us actually do something about it.
Pain is an alarm system for our body that indicates something is wrong. But the type, amount, and frequency of pain matters in this context.
Take a headache for example:
If you woke up with a 3/10 headache, you’d probably continue to go about your day normally, albeit in some discomfort. But, if you woke up with a 10/10 headache, you’d be headed to the Emergency Room. It’s not the headache itself that was alarming, it was the intensity of the headache.
In the same scenario of waking up with a 3/10 headache, but now instead of only once it was every day for a week, you’d probably go get it checked out.
Again, it’s not the headache itself, but how frequent it’s occurring that alarmed you something was “off”.
This same concept can be applied to our entire musculoskeletal system.
In those of us that train regularly, whether that be in the gym or in a sport, pain is something that is very familiar to us.
A lot of the times, pain can actually improve if we continue to exercise and move our bodies and will only get worse if we stop exercising completely to rest.
Nonetheless, I often get asked “how much pain is too much pain to push through”.
To start, if pain goes away with warm up, its not much to stress over.
If pain persists after a warm up, then these general guidelines may help classify your pain into something to keep an eye on, or something to get checked out:
Intensity, Frequency/ Duration, Type
Intensity:
In general, when we talk about pain intensity on a scale of 0-10, with 0 being no pain and 10 being worst pain imaginable, a rule of thumb is <5/10 is usually OK to “push though”, while ≥ 5/10 warrants some type of modification.
Modifications can be anything from shortening your range of motion (not squatting as low), decreasing weight, decreasing volume (lower sets and reps), or changing the exercise to a less intense one (walking instead of jogging, stepping instead jumping).
If these modifications don’t change your pain, it’s time to get it checked out by a healthcare provider.
Duration/ Frequency:
As mentioned above, if pain goes away with warm up, it’s typically not much of a concern.
However, if this pain persists into and limits your workout, happens every time you perform a certain movement, or has been consistently occurring for more than 3-4 weeks, it should be checked out by a heath care provider.
Type:
Something you’d describe as achy, uncomfortable, or tolerable can be a regular occurrence as you train, especially at high intensities, but these symptoms don’t always warrant intervention. If managed correctly, they can improve once we adapt to our training intensity.
However, if these pains persist, or become sharp, stabbing, burning, or tingling, then your next best bet is to get them checked out by a healthcare provider.
The main takeaway from this blog should be that all pain is not bad pain and can often improve on its own by following the afore mentioned guidelines.
If you find yourself constantly being limited by pain with training, competing, or everyday life and fall into the category of “get that looked at” regarding intensity, frequency/ duration, and type, of pain then give us a call!