4 Training Mistakes That Keep You Stuck in the Pain Cycle
If you love training but keep running into flare-ups, frustration, and stalled progress, you might be making one (or more) of these mistakes:
#1: Progressing Too Fast (Before Your Body Is Ready)
Oh man, I see it ALL the time. A client has been dealing with pain for months, and they are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Pain has become less intense and less frequent, workouts have become more "normal," and they're starting to feel like "themselves" again.
It's like when you're in those last few weeks of school before summer, and you're just chomping at the bit to play all day with no worries. Remember that feeling? You and your friends start to get a little bit unruly - not caring as much about school work, daydreaming about summer trips, playing outside after school instead of studying for those finals... (maybe this was just me, lol).
I really think we're all just kids inside adult bodies with the same insatiable drive to be free and play.
When you are rehabbing from an injury, it's essential to control this drive. Sure, I want my clients to be driven, but we don't want to ditch all of the guidelines and mindfulness that we've been harnessing leading up to this point.
INSTEAD of going "full send" the second you start feeling good, you need to continue to take it slow and be methodical with your progressions.
Turn one dial at a time (weight, reps, or complexity).
Once you make an increase, give yourself a few sessions to dial in the technique and allow the body to reduce its sensitivity. Then, make another increase.
This looks like progressing every 2-3 weeks instead of every week or every session.
This brings me to common mistake number 2...
#2: Expecting Progress to Be Linear
Listen, pain is complex AF. Just look at this image, and you can see how many factors affect why, how, and how much pain you feel on any given day.
Of course, "physical" factors like increased strength or stability and improved mobility will help decrease pain. Likewise, psychological factors like stress or lifestyle factors like sleep quality can also make your body more sensitive and, thus, make pain more intense. Social/work factors like free time or a work environment can slow recovery.
INSTEAD, you should expect to experience periods of spikes in pain or slow progress. Setting realistic expectations will prevent the emotional turmoil and frustration that can result from expecting the rehab process to be a smooth ride the entire time.
#3: Forcing Painful Movements Instead of Adapting
I am guilty of this, too. You want so badly to be able to do the type of workouts you used to do. It just makes sense that if you want to be able to do something, you should keep doing that thing until you're successful, right?
If we're talking about learning or (re-learning) a new skill, then yes, this is the correct route. When it comes to getting out of pain, it is not as cut-and-dry. Doing movements that cause you a lot of pain probably means you're irritating a tissue and stalling its ability to heal. At the very least, you continue to put your nervous system on high alert, which is also likely making your body much more sensitive (i.e., amplifying the pain).
INSTEAD: Adjust the exercise so that the pain stays below a 4/10, and ideally decreases over time. This might mean reducing the range of motion, switching to a different machine, changing your stance, or various other adjustments.
Finding your "send it" exercises is one of the first things we'll do during your onboarding process. If you're struggling to train hard without causing pain, we should partner up to get you on the right track. Fill out this form, and I will email you.
Speaking of getting you on the right track, one of the lowest-hanging fruits is cleaning up your warm-up. Which, brings me to common mistake number four....
#4: Botching Your Warm-Up
There are two major "camps" of people regarding how they approach a warm-up.
On one side, some people skip the warm-up entirely. Some think they don't have the time, while others think we don't need one, touting quotes like, "Does a lion warm up before they take down a gazelle?!"
The thing is, the modern human lifestyle means that we are pretty sedentary for most of the day, outside of sport or fitness. Does it make sense to expect your body to flip a switch and move fast, coordinate complex movements, and lift heavy loads (relatively speaking)? The answer is no.
On the other hand, some people spend 30+ minutes warming up. Some enjoy nerding out--trying every new activation or mobility drill they scroll past on Instagram (me, for a long time). Others have slipped into the trap of thinking that they NEED to do a long list of corrective exercises before they can work out.
At some point, there is a "too much." When you spend most of your workout time warming up, you have limited time, energy, and focus to devote to the things that give you the most significant ROI (return on investment). I'm talking about getting strong, building muscle, and stimulating your body to make meaningful changes.
Don't get me wrong; there is a time and a place for longer, more involved warm-ups that include all the corrective exercises, mobility, and activation. Eventually, we need to phase that out and start systemizing your warm-up into an intentional and efficient 15(ish)-minute block.
INSTEAD: I use a structure that we teach in the Pain-Free Performance Specialist Certification, called The 6-Phase Dynamic Warm-up Sequence.
👇🏼 Here is an example from a recent post I made on Instagram (clickable).
Click here to view it on Instagram.
Now, it goes without saying that there are many other common mistakes. Transparently, I even hesitated to use the term "mistake" because it insinuates that there is a right or wrong way to overcome pain. While we all have our own unique problems, injury histories, lifestyles and goals, there are just some things that commonly work better or worse. These four mistakes are some of the most frequent issues that I help my clients to understand and overcome.
Don't overwhelm yourself by trying to "fix" everything simultaneously. Pick the most glaring issue and create a simple game plan to clean it up over time.
If you want help putting together a plan of attack, don't hesitate to reach out.
👉🏼 Click here to learn more about my unique approach to training hard while navigating pain.
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