Learn these 3 Simple, Breakthrough Tips to reduce pain now and get back on track with your Health & Fitness goals now!
Pain During Exercise
Pain can present as a very persistent, and frustrating barrier keeping us from reaching our Health & Fitness goals.
Fortunately, there’s a couple of easy tricks you can incorporate to reduce pain and start exercising again today!
Firstly, it is important to figure-out if your pain is stable, or unstable.
Stable Pain is pain that is not increasing, and remains at the same intensity, & in the same body regions.
Unstable Pain is pain that is either increasing in intensity, changing in presence, or traveling (referring) to other regions of your body.
If your pain is stable, then try these 3 Breakthrough Tips during your next workout/exercise session.
If your pain is unstable, we recommend consulting with your health care or medical professional, such as Accredited Exercise Physiologist, Physiotherapist or General Practitioner.
3 Tricks to Reduce Pain During Exercise
Reduce the Load/Intensity
This rule is simple to follow when using gym machines. If you find that you get pain while completing an exercise at a particular weight or load, trying reducing this load by approximately 20-40%, and try again.
For example, if you’re experiencing shoulder pain while completing push-ups, try completing push-ups off your knees, completing this movement off your knees reducing the absolute load on your shoulder, which will allow you to exercise with less pain.
If you’re completing an aerobic exercise, such as jogging, cycling or rowing, you can try reducing your intensity/speed.
For example, if you’re having knee pain while jogging, try jogging slower, reducing speed reduces the load & jar on your knees, which quite often will reduce pain.
If this doesn’t reduce your pain, try one of the below tricks!
Reduce the Range of Motion
Another great go to trick to try is reducing the range of movement! When reducing the range of movement of an exercise, you reduce demand of the muscles your working, and stability requirement from the associated joint.
For example, if you’re experiencing shoulder pain in an exercise such as a push-up, try completing half of a push-up, that is only going down as far as tolerable on the shoulder.
If you find this still hasn’t reduced your pain, try our last trick!
Reduce Volume of Exercise
One of the best ways to manage pain & still exercise is through moderation. Exercise is great! But if you’re experiencing a stubborn niggle, reducing the total exercise volume or duration temporarily is a great way to still exercise, and provide a method of active recovery, which speeds your rehab time.
For example, if you’re finding knee pain after completing a 30min run, & you’ve already tried slowing down & reducing the intensity, try cutting your run to a 15-20min run, or as tolerated. You won’t have to stay here forever, but this will provide as an effective active recovery to get you back on track & pain free faster!
Research has shown that exercising in low level, tolerable and stable pain is therapeutic, that is you rehab journey is quicker than if you were to rest until you have no pain at all.
Light exercise accelerates your rebab and allows you to return to activities/sport/work sooner, than if you were to rest altogether.
Combing said exercise with specific rehab exercise from your health provider is the fastest way to return to action, & prevent exacerbation from occurring in future.
If you try Exercising with low amounts of pain, ensure that your Symptoms are NOT WORSE afterwards, and that they are manageable through the day. If your symptoms are worse and not manageable following exercise, this means that you need to reduce the load / intensity, range of motion, or reduce the volume of the exercise.
As you find a tolerable level of exercise, it is time to incrementally increase as your symptoms allow.
However, this process can be a bit daunting, if you’re unsure, we recommend talking to your relevant Healthcare provider, such as an Accredited Exercise Physiologist in Brisbane or Physiotherapist.
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