A great analogy for pain is a fire alarm; it tells you when your house is on fire, but it also lets you know when you are burning the bacon. It is telling you there is something wrong, but it is your job to determine if you need to run out the house or open a window.
In terms of your body, you would expect pain when you break a bone, when you stub your toe or when you are crammed in economy for a 10-hours. These events cannot be compared in terms of their effect on the body, but have all been triggered by a pain response. Pain can be described in different ways such as being sharp, achy, burning, numb and shooting.
In more technical terms, pain is defined as ‘An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual, or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage’1. The main thing we can take from this is that when we experience pain it doesn’t necessarily mean there is damage, so do not be afraid of pain but be cautious.
Pain will often present with other symptoms such as swelling, bruising, bleeding, deformity, reduced mobility and abrasions. If any of these other symptoms are present it is recommended to see an appropriate healthcare professional. Pain is multifactorial and all areas of your life can influence pain this is called the Biopsychosocial Model. This means that everybody will interpret pain differently, as everyone is different.
Pain on its own still shouldn’t be ignored as the longer it is left, the more likely it is to lead to actual damage. For example, it is predicted that 84% of the world’s population will suffer from non-specific lower back pain at some point in their life2. This mean that medically we can find no specific cause for their pain. So, what is causing it? Short answer is, we do not know. However, what we do know is that those who experience back pain and do not do anything about it will experience chronic low back pain, as they become more sensitive to activities, movement or environments which used to be tolerable and they become triggers for pain, leading to a loss of function.
So, what does it mean to us in the gym?
The body is amazing and highly adaptive and it responds positively to exercise related stress. Otherwise known as training, which as we all know sometimes leads to aches and pains the next day. The key in dealing with pain is to find the right amount of stress. We look for a sweet spot when dealing with pain and a proxy scale of 1 to 10 is used (with 1 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain imaginable). On this scale we accept a max pain level of 4-5/10 during exercise when dealing with injury or pain. So in other words it’s okay to train as long as pain dose not reach a 6/10.
Simply put, the best thing we can do if we are in pain is to find out what causes us pain and modify what we do. For example, if you hurt your knee the next time you come to train try squatting. If that brings on too much pain, drop the weight, try a box squat, then a leg press, then a lunge, then a knee extension and then try a quad contraction.
The main thing is that you keep moving within the accepted pain levels as this is what will ultimately help the pain. When we cannot avoid the cause (such as sitting causing your back to ache), we can limit the time we spend doing those activities, get up every 20 minutes and just move, especially in those lengthened positions. The same applies to every movement, if it causes pain, there will be an alternative which you can do correctly within the accepted pain level.
Due to pain and/or injury being a natural part of everyone’s lives, we suggest that investing some time into learning more about this could be highly beneficial for the rest of your life. Our recommended professionals to refer to; Barbell Medicine, Cor-Kinetic and Stronger By Science.
If you are unsure or worried about exercise while in pain or injured, please do seek help from a medical professional before attempting anything.
We offer a free consultation and a range of treatments here at ARC Treatment Box, so please drop us an E-Mail at arctreatmentbox@gmail.com for any bookings or inquiries.
BSc, Connor Sharp & BSc, Kenneth Simpson.
References available upon request*