How to Deal with Discomfort

In response to a post last week about pain versus discomfort, I was asked about how to cope with discomfort during workouts.  It’s a good question.  And, like all good fitness questions, the answer is to experiment and see what works. 

No, I’m not going to leave it at that.  That would be mean.  I’m going to offer some suggestions that we can try.

 

My first suggestion is that we find something we love to do.  When I am biking, for example, I can tolerate way more discomfort than I can if I’m stuck in traffic.  The sheer joy of biking helps me deal with the burning in my thighs and the breathless feeling and the way my hands eventually stop working altogether.  (OK, that last part is why I keep my bike rides short nowadays; that hand thing edges over into the pain and damage thing I talked about last week.)  Maybe for some of us we find our joy in dancing or in heavy lifting or in swimming or skiing or roller skating.  All of those things can bring on discomfort if we are working/playing hard.

 

Sometimes, though, for our own good we find ourselves facing the parts of workouts that do not bring us joy.  We need to get through those parts, too.  Don’t worry:  I have yet more suggestions!

 

Most of those come down to treating ourselves like fractious toddlers.  We can try distraction (hey, listen to this great song while we do our lunges!).  We can make sure we’re hydrated, fed, and rested to minimize the energy crashes (filling up a water bottle is a totally allowable rest period during a workout).  We can figure out what the absolute minimum goal is and stop then (Just one more lunge; you can do it!).  And we can use bribery (after this workout, I get to take a long, hot shower with the good-smelling soap!).

 

One other non-toddler friendly technique that we can use since we are grown-ups is keeping our eyes on the prize.  When we focus on why we are suffering through these lunges (to look cute, to climb Machu Picchu, to reduce our body fat percentage, to impress the boys, to have strong bones for independent living in old age, whatever…), we are more willing to undergo the hard parts.  A caveat:  it has to be a real reason, not one that we think we should have.  This is not the time to pretend we have some noble reason like being able to rescue baby animals from burning forests when what we really want is to make the mean girls at the high school reunion jealous of our awesomeness.  No one has to know our reasons.  No one gets to judge them.

 

A final thought:  for most exercise goals, there are lots of ways to accomplish them.  It is possible, oftentimes, to avoid exercises we truly hate by doing one we hate less.

 

Go play.