Getting hurt is a drag. It’s tougher when you’re used to being active and an injury keeps you from training regularly or at the effort you want. Many people fall into two camps: taking complete rest, or pushing through the pain with bare grit. Neither is ideal.
I believe injury (or training with a bit of pain) is often unavoidable. As I’ve joked—though not really—that lifting weights isn’t supposed to tickle. Pain, pain science, and how to train around pain are complex topics. This is a practical blog post, not a full dissertation. So today I’ll share some strategies for training around pain that avoid extremes like sitting on the couch or overthinking every movement.
Factors to consider when training around pain
Let’s start with a definition of pain. Pain is a localized or generalized unpleasant sensation that can cause physical discomfort and emotional distress, and it often comes from an injury or disease. It isn’t always tied to actual damage, though. Pain can act like a smoke alarm, signaling that something in the body isn’t right. It can show up in many forms, so it’s important to recognize that pain isn’t always a sign of tissue failure.
A helpful cup analogy from a 2016 physiotherapy study describes pain as a cup that can be filled from many sources. You can address pain in two main ways: reduce the contents of the cup, or make the cup bigger through appropriately progressed strength training.
There are several practical ways to build a framework for training around pain that don’t involve passivity, endless corrective exercises, or surgery.
1. Technique audit
When someone reports shoulder pain during bench pressing, I don’t spend ages diagnosing mobility or breathing patterns. I’ll simply have them show me their bench press. More often than not, a subtle tweak in setup and execution makes the shoulder feel much better almost immediately. That doesn’t mean we ignore other factors like mobility or breathing, but most people respond better when we get straight to the root cause: the technique.
2. Programming audit
How often do you review your programs? Sometimes pain comes from being too aggressive with loading or exercise variation, not from a real mobility issue. Load management is a major factor we often overlook. For example, someone who benches once a week and experiences lingering shoulder pain after the session might benefit from spreading the same weekly volume over two workouts rather than one.
3. Change modifiable factors
When something hurts, start with volume and load. Find the symptom threshold and train just below it to build tolerance and resilience. For squats, if the knee hurts at a certain depth, squat above that depth with a box or other variation. You can also adjust stance width, toe angle, bar position, or tempo. The aim is to keep squatting with a variation that reduces symptoms rather than stopping altogether, provided there’s no serious issue.
4. An exorcism
Only as a last resort.
