Should You Work Through the Pain?

When does “no pain, no gain” become “oh crap, I think I really pulled something?”

So, you’re in the middle of a pretty intense workout. Everything is good. You’re feeling the pain. No really, there is a lot of pain! Should you quit or should you push through the pain?

That’s a tough question for most of us. There’s a fine line between “feeling the burn” of good pain and feeling the kind of pain that will likely sideline you for a significant amount of time.

A personal trainer will probably tell you to “listen to your body, it knows best.” Well hell that doesn’t work. My body just says that it’s time for a beer!

So, what are the differences in good and bad pain?

Good Pain: The type of pain where you can feel a burning sensation deep down in the middle of a muscle. This feeling is what you get when you’ve fatigued a muscle correctly and you know that in a day or so it’s going to feel better and look more toned than ever.

Bad Pain: This is not a good feeling. It can best be characterized by a pulling or stabbing sensation in a muscle or joint. Chances are that everyone reading this has experienced this at least once in their life.

There are lots of things that cause muscle pulls, tendon pulls, joint pain or even broken bones.
•    Failure to stretch properly before beginning the exercise
•    Doing the exercise wrong. This is very common for beginning weight lifters.
•    Bad form on a lifting machine
•    Stepping on something during cardio. The worst ankle sprain I ever had was caused by stepping on the side of another player’s foot during a basketball game. Damn that hurts!

Bottom line here is that if you aren’t sure what is causing the pain, either stop and rest for a day or two, or worst case scenario, go to a doctor and have some tests done.