5 Principals: Protect Yourself AND Get Stronger

When you struggle with chronic pain or chronic injuries, it is incredibly frustrating. You want to be able to look out at the sunset, put your feet up, not worry about it, and just wake up and enjoy exercise again!

This is understandable. However, in my experience, this can lead to efforts to simply ignore your chronic pain or injuries. When in fact, pain and injury mean something. They do not mean that you are not good enough, that you haven’t done a good job, or that you are broken. However, they do mean that something needs to change. If you are ready to make a change, you can shift your workouts to be more principle-based.

What does principle-based mean? It means that you adjust your workouts based on principles, instead of trying to follow a prescribed “perfect” plan. If you have a history of injuries or any chronic condition, you know that one day you may be doing great and the next can be completely different. A set plan does not allow for this. A PRINCIPLE-BASED PLAN does! When you understand the principles, you can then learn to adjust for bad days and for good ones.

Principle 1: Awareness as a Guide

What I mean by awareness, in this context, is to pay attention to how you feel. This is not the same as, “listening to your body”. It is more similar to taking note of your body. For example, as you read this, take 10-30 seconds to take some deep breaths and notice how your body feels. Do you have a cramp in your back? Do you feel tension? Do you feel little to nothing? Everything that you notice about your body can be helpful. When you are working out, the more you notice what is going on with your body the better.

If you just took 10 seconds to pay attention to your body and got distracted or felt nothing, this is a sign that you need a bit more practice. Awareness is a skill, and in our current information-heavy world, awareness can be difficult. Fortunately, awareness can both help you while exercising AND be improved through exercise. Putting your phone down, turning your music off, and paying attention to your body during exercise is a way to practice awareness.

AND awareness during exercise can serve as a guide (See principles 2 &3).

Principle 2: Adjust For How You Feel in The Moment

Awareness can help you at many times in your life, however, in this context, the first is by paying attention to your body DURING your workout. For example, if you have been struggling with neck pain, how does your neck feel when you are doing your set of squats? Is it tight? On a scale of 1-10 is it more painful after than before? Less painful?

These assessments are important if you have an injury that just doesn’t seem to heal. Acute pain, or injury, can turn into chronic pain, which continues for over 3-6 months. When this occurs, changes in the nervous system often make you more sensitive to pain. This means that a small tweak during exercise can quickly turn into intense and lasting pain. Therefore, paying attention to how you feel during a workout is very important. Awareness is a tool that you can use to protect yourself both today and tomorrow.

I would like to note that it is easy to change this “tool” into a way to blame yourself. If you don’t notice something, it does not mean that having pain is your fault. It may mean that you need some help in figuring out the best option, in terms of exercise, for you.

Principle 3: Give Yourself Two Days Before Declaring Victory

So you just finished a workout, and your pain level is the same or lower than it was before. Woo hoo! Party time!

I suggest you actually wait to throw the party and write down your workout as the BEST WORKOUT EVER! Instead, give yourself two days. Two days will show you how your body truly responded to the exercises that you did. This includes how sore you are, both in muscles and joints, and how fatigued you are.

This is especially true if you are hypermobile or have EDS, two things that commonly result in chronic pain. If you have hypermobility in your joints, too much soreness can cause subluxation at the worst, or simple joint pain that takes days or weeks to dissipate.

Principle 4: Different is Better

The most common thing I hear in coaching individuals with chronic pain is that the same place always gets sore. If you struggle with this, you are not alone, and it can be incredibly frustrating. However, as you start to adjust your workouts, and learn to improve the quality of your movement, your pain may change. In my opinion, ideally, pain levels would not increase. However, what I commonly see is that pain moves around. For example, pain in the lower back may dissipate, but you develop some soreness in your hip.

I would suggest that different is better. This is because chronic pain in a specific area affects the nerves in that specific area. When you have a change in your pain levels, this shows that something is shifting. New soreness may be due to engaging hip stabilizers that can protect your lower back, but you haven’t used in a LONG time. This means that you will likely feel some discomfort in your hip.

Remember, getting checked out by a doctor is the best way to know what is going on in your specific situation, and in no way is this post meant to diagnose your unique challenges with pain.

Principle 5: Play the Long Game

Movement and ego are often closely tied, not only in you but in society. Individuals who are great at a sport are celebrated for their skill and hard work. In the gym, those who work the hardest and the most are often seen as better and called out as such.

However, while it is a wonderful feeling to be celebrated, at what cost? Is it worth pushing yourself in a fitness class to have two weeks of debilitating pain? Ultimately, the question is one that you get to answer.

Principle 5 is to play the long game. The long game means dropping the gaol of proving yourself, or not putting yourself in situations where you can’t resist, and focusing on where you want to be in a year or five years. If the answer is to have less pain, then your path is more clear.

In order to not have more pain, you need to learn to not increase your pain levels. Sounds simple, right? However, it really isn’t. In a class environment or working out with a friend, you may enjoy the feeling of pushing. However, pushing often causes pain. It is important to draw your attention to how you feel, create boundaries that help you to stay out of pain as much as possible, AND follow these boundaries.

In the moment it is certainly not as fun, however, in the long run, you can make changes that help you to improve your movement and get back to what you love.

Are you struggling with gaining strength? Find yourself continually getting injured and don’t know why. I can help. I offer individual sessions AND online personal training where I can guide you toward gaining strength AND protecting yourself. You will learn to stabilize, and improve movement patterns, AND integrate movement back into your life in a healthy way. To learn more call today at (360)774-1607 or email me at chelseawhalen.trainer.com.