This is a line from one heck of a fun movie called The Long Kiss Goodnight, although maybe the context isn’t readily applicable here, but hear me out:
Pain is an inevitability in life, especially in the physical realm of exercise in which you are attempting to push and grow your body. The avoidance of pain is seldom the same as the eradication of the root of that pain, though. Instead of fixing the problem, we frequently balm it so that we don’t have to feel it.
When it comes to exercise, there are different varieties of pain that you must become acquainted with. This was one of the lessons I had to learn when I began this health/fitness journey. I didn’t fear the concept of pain per se. I had seen the T-shirts that said, “No pain, no gain.” But when I actually experienced pain, I would shrink away in fear.
My mind would run the gamut of, “What’s that pain? Is it a bad pain? If I continue, will I hurt myself? If so, how much will that hurt cost—will it be a quick recovery, or will it be a laborious process?” and then I would convince myself that it was better to simply stop whatever physical activity I was doing and try again later. Now, that may actually be the correct course of action in certain circumstances… it really depends.
What I instead needed to learn how to do was to listen to the pain signals in order to better understand what my body was trying to tell me.
What does it feel like? When does the pain occur? Are there certain movements that alleviate or aggravate the pain? Are those movements functional and correct, in which case the pain may be an indication that something is wrong inside and you need to stop? Or are those movements inappropriate and coming from a place of physical deformity, in which case the pain may be an indication that you are making progress towards correcting malformations, and therefore the pain is a necessary part of the process? How much pain is too much? What parts of your body are contributing to the pain even if they are not the primary muscle group being used? For example, I have been learning about agonist and antagonist muscle groups, which are part of the glorious ebb-and-flow of the body—essentially one muscle group contracts while the other muscle group regulates. And of course, there’s fascia, for which I refer you to my previous post.
Overall, I don’t aspire to be diagnostic or prescriptive in this particular post, but instead to posit the idea that instead of treating all physical pain as if it is either 1) a good thing that should be universally welcomed in a workout (the proverbial “pain is weakness leaving the body”), which could result in serious injury if you’re not well-attuned to what the pain is telling you, or 2) a bad thing that should be universally avoided, which will certainly slow your progress if not completely upend it, we should all learn to listen to our bodies more when it comes to this particular topic.
***There are some obvious caveats (or at least extensions) here—first and foremost, if you have little competency in the area of health/fitness, then you probably don’t have enough of a framework to be able to make accurate assessments, for which I recommend you seek some kind of professional, informed opinion. Then past that, learn everything you can so that, when you feel a pinch or a sting or a soreness or any other variety of pain, you’ll have a better understanding of its origins and what the body is trying to signal to you through that pain.
Until next time.
– Duncan
