Is there a place for pain when the overarching goal is to lead a healthy and happy life through fitness?

The question above would be answered in many different ways if you were to ask different coaches, professionals, and participants view points on it.  With some coaches and professionals saying that everyone should expect and tolerate some level of pain during their fitness journey, with others saying that pain present during exercise should be avoided completely.  On the other side you’ll have some participants in fitness training wearing their ability to train and push through pain as a badge of honor, and others who would shy away and think twice about doing something if it hurt.  However, it opens up an area for discussion as to whether or not pain has a place within the fitness journey of individuals when the overarching goal is to lead a long, healthy and happy life through the medium of fitness training.

An important place to start would be to have an awareness around why you turn up at the gym day on day, week on week.  For the vast majority, sports performance is not the main focus when turning up at the gym after a hard day at work or in the early morning before taking the kids to school.  When we talk about sports performance we are talking about training and playing a sport for the purposes of competition, not playing football or tennis a couple of times per week with friends.  Under the umbrella of sports performance, it is likely that an element of pain will be part of that equation at times due to the fact that you are pushing your body to its physical limits.  Furthermore, competition schedules cannot simply be put on hold if you are feeling a niggle.  This will therefore take you to the far right of the fitness continuum.  Training and competing for sports performance are not endeavors for those with the purpose of using fitness training to lead a healthy and happy life.

You could also say the same for applying the principles of sports training to everyday fitness.  Examples include CrossFit and Weightlifting, which are sports in their own right, and as such come with risks including times of pain and injury.  This is not to scare you, as was said above, when you dip into the realm of sports performance the chances are that pain and injury become part of that process.  For this reason, the utility of principles of training for these sports are likely not applicable for the purpose of fitness training for health and longevity.

If the goal of your fitness training is to lead a long, healthy and happy life and you’re experiencing pain on a regular basis when doing so, then you must take the time to think about if this is taking you closer to your end goal.  Will doing this take you to the far left of the continuum above?  The place you say you want to be?  Probably not, as dancing around pain or injury are certain to affect the quality and consistency of what you can do over a long period of time, as well as have a negative impact on your quality of life.  

The concept of a long period of time is one that must be noticed.  For health, we want to be able to do what we are doing across our whole life time, and to do this we have to navigate times of pain and injury with proper management.  There will be times when pain or injury occurs for various reasons out with your control.  These are not times for you just to push through, these are not just part of ageing.  You don’t have a cup final to be ready for next week.  You want to be able to turn up to the gym, on a consistent basis free from the constraints of pain, not dreading the first set of squats because you know your knee is going to hurt pretty bad.  Or leave the gym not able to go up the stairs at your work because you lower back is killing you after deadlifts.  The key message for those training for health is not to accept times of pain and injury or part of the process, but to ask yourself or a professional why this may be happening and what you can do about it when it does happen.  Unless you are being guided by a professional, there is very little utility to pushing through pain if you are wanting to lead a long, healthy, happy life through fitness.

RYAN BARR | LEAD PHYSIOTHERAPIST & ARISTOS ID COACH

To book a consultation with Ryan or to download his 4 Step Guide to Understanding Your Pain, click here.