What to Do When Pain Creeps Up on You

Acute pain… chronic pain… Let’s face it, any sort of pain is, well, a pain to deal with!

At Evolved, we’ve consistently worked towards making strength training a safe option to more people by offering a program that can be tailored to their individual needs, limitations, and pain points. Just because something hurts doesn’t mean you have to stop moving altogether. Sometimes, it means we need to change how we move.

Let’s look at 5 common issues we see in the studio and how we modify our approach to help clients continue to build strength without causing further discomfort. 

1. Arthritis

Arthritis is incredibly common. Accordingly to Statistics Canada, by the age of 65 almost half of Canadians will have arthritis (I blame the cold weather). So it’s no wonder we see plenty of clients come in with varying degrees of pain from arthritis. Whether it’s aching hands, cranky knees, or stiff hips, this joint pain can make everyday activities less enjoyable. 

One important part of managing arthritis is maintaining the strength of the muscles surrounding the affected joints. Stronger muscles can help support joint function, improve mobility, and make everyday activities enjoyable again. 

For some clients, a shorter time under load with a challenging, but manageable weight can be a useful approach. This allows us to work the muscles effectively to a level of fatigue without unnecessarily aggravating a sensitive joint with high repetitions. 

2. Neck and Shoulder Pain

If you work at a desk, spend a lot of time driving, or find yourself looking down at your phone, you may be familiar with neck and shoulder pain. Our modern routines often involve spending long periods in the same position (cue the rounded shoulders and poor posture), which can contribute to stiffness in the neck, shoulders, and upper back. Our bodies are designed to move, and spending too long in any one position can take it’s toll. 

Strength training helps to address this problem by strengthening weakened muscles and improving mobility in tight muscles. A common misconception is that strength training will reduce your flexibility. It doesn’t! When exercises are performed through a comfortable, controlled range of motion, strength training can improve mobility instead of limit it.

For clients who find it difficult to avoid engaging the neck, we focus on using a more manageable weight that allows the client to maintain proper form and work through as much of their available range of motion as possible. Exercises such as row, chest press, shoulder press, and neck can help support the upper body anatomy with or without modification. 

3. Low Back Pain

Low back pain is another common issue our clients come to us to help solve. Although there can be many factors as to what causes a persons low back pain, a big one is general weakness or de-conditioning of the muscles around the lower back. 

Our MedX lumbar extension machine is specifically designed to isolate and exercise the muscles responsible for extending the lumbar spine, allowing us to work on lower back strength in a safe, controlled environment. Unlike general exercises that involve multiple muscle groups, the MedX system is designed to isolate and target the lumbar extensor muscles. This gives us a way to gently challenge these muscles while monitoring the client's comfort.

The low back often seems to be the missing piece when it comes to full body strength and isn’t an area that should be neglected. When it comes to getting the most out of this exercise during your workout, we recommend either starting here to warm up the low back before taking on more challenging exercises, or finishing here as a final stretch before you head out the door. 

4. Frozen Shoulder

Frozen shoulder is a particularly frustrating and mysterious condition. It develops when the tissues surrounding the shoulder joint become inflamed and stiff, causing pain and loss of mobility. It typically affects one shoulder and can take months, or even years to fully resolve. The biggest indicator of frozen shoulder vs other upper body pain, is the severely limited range of motion when extending your arm. This isn’t something we can just force into function again, pushing through painful range can setback recovery. 

So, how do we approach strength training when someone has a frozen shoulder? We modify!

That often means temporarily removing overhead movements such as shoulder press and pulldown, reducing the range of motion, or focusing on other exercises that can be performed comfortably. We can still work on maintaining strength throughout the upper body while respecting the very clear “no-go zone” from the affected shoulder. 

As the shoulder begins to “thaw", overhead exercises can be reintroduced at a light weight, and the range of motion can continue to increase. 

5. Exercise-Induced Headaches

Headaches can be frustrating when they interrupt your workout. Although there can be a number of factors as to why someone gets a headache (prone to migraines, the weather change, an underlying condition, etc.), we are going to focus specifically on exercise-induced headaches for this section. There can be several contributing factors, including dehydration, breath-holding, neck tension, or de-conditioned muscles that can result in an exercise-induced headache. Our goal is to ultimately prevent this headache before it comes on, so this means maintaining communication with our client throughout their session. If any head pain starts to come on, it’s important we stop the exercise and reassess. Sometimes the solution is as simple as taking a few sips of water or some deep breath’s. Sometimes it means the workout needs to be cut short. What’s most important is our clients comfort. 

In the past, we have found that gently warming up the neck muscles first can be beneficial, starting on a lower body exercise (this requires more blood to flow to the lower extremities and can prevent blood from rushing up to the head), less upper body movements, a focus on coaching proper breath work, and/or reducing the intensity to focus on form. 

This is a pain we especially don’t want to push through, so modification are important.

Pain Doesn't Always Mean Stop. Sometimes It Means Modify.

Pain can be unpredictable and discouraging when it comes to exercise. It can make us hesitant to lift heavy, especially when we're worried that movement might make things worse.

But the solution to pain is rarely to stop movement all together. At Evolved, we want to tailor our protocol to meet people where they’re at, and help them build strength while respecting any limitations they may have.