When to Learn from Pain and When Not To

I’m not a fan of pain.  I have a certain amount of appreciation for soreness; it usually means that something has been accomplished.  Pain, on the other hand, tends to imply that something has gone wrong.

That said, there are things to be learned from pain.  When we are in the midst of an activity and something hurts, assuming it is not the kind of intense pain that means Stop Right Now Or Else (see below), we have an opportunity to check out our form.  Maybe the knee pain we are feeling can be avoided if we pay attention to how we place our feet or how we align our hips.  Maybe our lower backs would enjoy what we are doing a lot more if we remember to use our abdominals or adjust the position of our pelvises.

We can also use pain as a marker for when to ease up on something.  Try a slower speed or a lower weight or a longer warm-up or additional stretching before, during, or after.

Sometimes pain means that we skipped a few steps, like drinking enough water or eating appropriately before the workout or taking appropriate safety precautions or using proper equipment.

If we are doing something and we have intense pain, we need to stop.  Pushing through pain can often lead to more serious injury.  It is not failure to stop when we need to stop.  It is important to seek medical advice when appropriate.  The ideas above are about adjusting to minor pain and if the pain persists, it is just good sense to stop until we figure out what is causing the problem.  Be smart, loves.

Rest Tracker?

I have a Fitbit and I find it useful, although there are limits to its usefulness.

I have written before about how there is nothing magic about the number 10, or any other number for that matter.  We are not significantly less fit if we do 9,999 steps in a day rather than 10,000.  It is much more important to focus on the overall trends than on hitting a particular milestone each day.  Maybe life got hectic and we only managed 5,236 steps some Wednesday, but then on Friday we had some extra time and ended up at 17,201.  It evens out.  And if it doesn’t, we can adjust.

The other limitation I find is that the device and others like it are set up to reward doing more.  There is definitely a place for rest in fitness and trackers don’t account for it.

I admit, I talk back to my Fitbit.  I tell it that it can cut it out with the reminders about how I only have 1,504 steps to go to reach my goal for the day.  I suggest that it might not be helpful to get all passive-aggressive and tell me I’m an overachiever on the days when I end up on a longer than expected hike and post 18,417 steps.  Even so, I have to make the effort to manage my reaction to the expectations this inanimate object places on me.  It is not my boss.  It may track how much sleep I got, but it doesn’t know that the four hours of sleep translates into a serious lack of energy and that its reminders don’t exactly fill my tired heart with joy in that context.

Overall, I like what having a tracker does for me.  Many of my clients find them handy.  But they are not a substitute for common sense and they will not tell you when it is time for a well-deserved day of rest.  We have to do that ourselves.

Coping with Fear

Sometimes in fitness we do things that scare us.  The first workout back after an injury, for example, can be anxiety-provoking for many reasons, including the fear that we will reinjure ourselves or that we have lost too much ground while we’ve been recovering or that we’ll never be the same again.

Or maybe we are going along happily doing our skiing or climbing or boxing and a Bad Thing happens, whether that’s a fall or an injury or a crash or a blow or something else.  We have to deal with the thing itself, but also with the wave of emotion that comes with it.

Or maybe we’ve never tried a particular class or activity before and we just don’t know how it is going to work for us.  Maybe we won’t be good at it or the instructor could be mean or the regulars won’t make space for us.

Whatever it is, there are ways to cope.  The most basic is to focus on breathing.  As long as we keep doing that, it’s going to be all right.  We can also collect information ahead of time about warm-ups or preparatory drills or stretches, about the instructor, about what kind of moves are potentially risky for whatever condition we are dealing with and deploy that knowledge to keep ourselves safe.  We can recruit a team or a buddy to go with us, whether that’s a coach or a therapist or a trainer or just a willing friend who will support us when the going gets tough.

Fitness is about getting more powerful, but not always in the ways we expect.