Choosing When & How to Adjust Vs. Pivot in a New Direction
Anyone who has ever had to recover from an injury, has chronic pain, or has a chronic condition that impacts movement, such as Joint Hypermobility or Hypermobile EDS, has been told that they will need to make adjustments for strength training to be feasible. In fact, modifications and changes are commonplace, including going slower, making movement smaller, or doing fewer repetitions. These simple changes can be helpful, but are often more difficult in implementation than in theory, and if they don’t work, what’s next? How do we get off the track we are on and make changes that will truly work for us?
The 3 Steps in Making Adjustments
Having a structure for how to adjust movement is instrumental, allowing you to transform a workout that would otherwise be risky or simply physically impossible. These 3 methods of adjusting provide a thoughtful guide for how to proceed when a movement is not working for you.
1. Make it Slower
In movement, especially movement that challenges your strength, going faster is easier as it utilizes momentum, allowing you to do more reps and a higher range of motion than you can produce without speed. Essentially, it allows you to “get it done”, but does not allow you to get it done WELL.
Slowing down is an excellent adjustment if a movement is causing challenges (and even if it isn’t!), as it allows you time to fully process and control the movement, which in turn increases stabilization and improves movement patterns. Additionally, slowing movement down helps you recruit more of the correct muscles, which, if you are seeking improved strength, is hugely important. Making a movement slower decreases the risk of poor movement patterns, which can resolve many issues very rapidly!
2. Make it Smaller
If slowing down isn’t doing the trick, the next step is to make it smaller. This means reducing the range of motion. For a lunge, this would look like lowering halfway, or whatever range you can control with correct form, instead of all of the way to the ground.
Decreasing the range, similar to slowing down and especially paired with slowing down, allows and encourages muscle control, which can reduce discomfort and give you access to what I like to call a “mini version” of the movement. I call it this not to diminish it, but instead to encourage, as a mini version eventually leads to a correct and pain-free full version!
3. Make it Easier
If you have slowed down, decreased the range of motion, and are still having issues, the next step is to make the movement less challenging. This looks different for every movement and includes changes like decreasing weight or going to body weight only, doing a movement that you would like to do with a band without a band, or adding an element of external stability such as putting your hand on a chair or a wall while doing a lung.
An Example
Let’s say you are doing a push-up, or a certain number of push-ups, and you are struggling with some sort of shoulder pain or discomfort. As you practice your push-up, you could slow it down, counting as you go, and make sure that you’re in the correct position at every step, and even add a pause at the bottom and top to ensure correct engagement. Next, you could make it smaller, meaning that you work in a smaller range of motion. Finally, you could make it easier, which could include elevating your hands, doing the lowering push-up portion of a push-up only, or adding a band for support to reduce body weight.
These adjustments could all allow you to continue to work towards a goal and make the necessary changes to reduce discomfort, poor movement patterns, and agitation in your shoulder.
Addressing Common Challenges
While it sounds easy, making adjustments, especially mid-workout, is difficult. First, having to change your plans abruptly and do an alternative exercise can cause confusion and frustration. If you’re following a set program where you are meant to do 15 lunges each side, with the demonstration showing the instructor holding dumbbells, you will naturally expect that you should also be doing that number, at that speed, with dumbbells.
Adjusting would include options such as reducing the weight, dropping the dumbbells completely, slowing down, decreasing the depth of the lung, or adding stabilization with a wall or chair. However, these changes require significant mental energy, forcing you to not simply follow the program, but adjust it on the fly.
Additionally, when you make changes to decrease difficulty, you can experience an ego hit. This is an uphill battle. Being capable and able are things that we commonly pride ourselves on, and only when we run into things we are not capable of, of which we all have many, do we start to notice how important it is for our feelings of worth and value.
If you have a history of debilitating pain or injury, it is also natural to feel some fear surrounding regression. This is particularly prominent if you have recently experienced significant improvement in strength and are having to regress after progression, as there is fear surrounding the loss of capacity. This can be as simple as the fear of being unable to do lunges or strength work to an overwhelming stress about not being functional, being bedbound, etc.
Decreasing difficulty feels like a regression, something that makes us not good enough or that might mean our progress is slipping away, when in reality it is simply a step towards success. Regression allows the movement to be correct, which in turn supports growth of strength and capacity, and often eventually leads to the ability to complete the movement without pain and irritation.
When Adjustments Don’t Work-What’s Next?
There are times when you make adjustments without success. This is true of singular movements such as lunges or push-ups, and for entire exercise routines. When this occurs, I suggest that it might be time to pivot. Pivoting means making a significant shift in direction, essentially changing the plan.
In terms of specific movements, a pivot could look like throwing out a strength movement like a squat or deadlift, and replacing it with smaller movements that work similar muscle groups. While a well-rounded strength program incorporates many of these movements, they can be replaced. In the short term, replacing a movement that is causing significant issues allows you to focus on the causes of the issues, which could include a lack of mobility, stability, or coordination. By stepping away and addressing the cause, you reduce the risk of injury and frustration.
For strength programs, pivoting commonly requires rewriting the plan in order to shift frequency, rest, intensity, exercise choices, and more. In order to make these changes, you have to look at the big picture of why the specific training program you are currently using is not working. Does it not allow enough rest? Is there not enough intensity or too much intensity? The goal of a strength program is progression. Therefore, you need to understand your goal and where you are currently. Commonly, programs that aren’t working are not oriented with these in mind.
Common Challenges
Making a new plan sounds easy enough. However, similar to making adjustments, there are more challenges than it appears from the surface. Most often, it can feel like you are giving up or simply not trying hard enough. As a result, it often sparks shame, guilt, or embarrassment. We experience the sunk cost fallacy: that we have already put so much time into the process, that stopping now is not an option. However, these internal challenges generally lead to not making a change that would allow us to see true progress. Sometimes giving up or quitting is the most effective way to move forward.
The other challenge with pivoting is the need for a new plan. I find this process similar to experiencing jet lag, as it takes some recalibration. Sticking to an initial plan is simple and easy, while making a new plan opens up a can of questions and issues. It requires awareness and investigation, both of which require time and energy. However, I would argue that it is likely to be time well spent.
Adjust or Pivot?
My rule of thumb is to adjust first, leaving the door open to pivoting as needed. This means first asking yourself, can I adjust what I have to resolve the issue I’m experiencing? When the answer is no, it’s time to start thinking about what it would look like to pivot away, with the door remaining open to potentially circle back to the movement or program at a later time.