Should You Stop Lifting When Something Hurts?

You're listening to Beast Over Burden powered by Barbell Logic. >> We're Nikki and Andrew, your personal professional coaches. >> We help you take control of your [music] fitness through hard but doable training and nutrition practices that fit your busy life. >> Build a stronger, healthier version of yourself with lifelong [music] habits. Hey everybody, welcome back to Beast Over Burden powered by Barbell Logic. It's me Nikki Sims. and Coco >> who's boofing [laughter] >> but not doing anything. She's laying down barking at dogs who are outside the house >> on their nice walk. >> And >> yes, >> of course, Andrew Jackson is here. [laughter] >> Hello again. >> So, happy Friday to us. Happy Tuesday to you. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Very excited. >> What are you excited about? Well, it's sunny out. >> I'm ready for the weekend. Football season has arrived. [laughter] >> Now we just get to get really excited and then watch as all of our favorite players are injured for the entire season. [laughter] It was a little a little painful to see >> how little of a mistake or issue it takes for somebody to have a lifealtering injury. >> Yeah. And also crazy it doesn't happen more frequently. >> Yeah. When you look at like how are more legs not being broken? >> Yeah. Just so much weight. >> Yeah. coming down on every single play onto limbs and ankles and knees and hips. >> It is It is kind of amazing that it's not more often. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> But I'm also excited because I'm training later today. >> What you got on the menu? I >> think I'm going to do some some snatch. >> That sounds cool. >> At least some power snatch minimum. Yeah. >> Do you ever do full the full thing? >> Yeah. Just last Friday, I did go snatch and clean and jerk. >> Nice. >> That's pretty fun. I went down to training grounds and uh Bellingham weightlifting club has a really cool team starting to come together. Ryan Belceto has uh been in the area for a couple of year, I think less than a year. He he really just started putting this together I think last summer uh after moving up uh and uh it's it's really fun. You know, you've got the the uh gym owner came over um and I'm blanking on his name at the moment. Kyle came over and uh he was just looking at all the barbells out on the floor. I think there were like 10 people lifting all simultaneously and he's like it's just really cool to see this many barbells out. >> Yeah. >> Uh and you know he's also pleasantly surprised that there was enough weight there were enough bumper plates to support the team. >> Oh yeah, that is cool. >> But you know it's pretty rare you see that. Uh unless you're, you know, it did flash me back to, you know, at CrossFit gyms that was kind of normal to see, you know, 20 barbells out with a little bit of weight on it and people just kind of flopping around to see exactly the 10 the poor [gasps and laughter] >> and just always yelling, "Please don't drop the tens from the top, please." And then then and then people throw it, you know, top of a thruster, chuck it, you know. >> But no, this is this is 10 plus barbells uh where everybody was legitimately lift weightlifting um planning, you know, working on competing and he's building that the community side of it, which I think is really cool. Um, but he's got he's got a good take on it because weightlifting in particular has a tendency to attract uh >> people that are very into weightlifting and it starts to >> you know you when you bring it a group of that kind of people together sometimes you create a club where weightlifting becomes the everybody's identity and it gets there >> there's a bit of a cultlike kind of group that can form and he's being very intentional about yes he wants to build a weightlifting community and a weightlifting club and he also wants weightlifting to be uh you know not the centerpiece of everybody's life. Uh >> you know how you can tell these people out in the wild? >> How's that? >> They hook grip everything. When they're driving they're hook gripping. When they're carrying a bag they're hook gripping. It might even just be hook gripping nothing. [laughter] >> I may have gone through a phase like that. >> Yeah, definitely >> hook gripping the grocery bag. [laughter] >> Yep. Well, that sounds fun. Yay. >> But I don't I think I'm gonna train at home today. >> Yeah. >> So, yeah. Forward to get some. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. Music, I think, is one of my favorite parts of training. Well, we're in our series, Acting Like You Care About Your Body, which in which we talk about how people behave, who take care of themselves, and the things that we hear that kind of will stop someone from acting how they need to act to feel better or feel good. And something that comes up a lot as a roadblock to making changes, and this is totally understandable, is pain. Back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain. It could be from an old injury, could be arthritis, could be something that came from a time when you used to be more active, probably came from when you were doing CrossFit. Um, and now as we get older, that becomes something that we feel like we live with, but also something that stops us from making changes, stops people from making changes. And we've learned as people who are really physical is you're going to encounter periods where you're dealing with some kind of injury or just pain without any obvious injury. and we've learned how to continue to improve and build more muscle or stay mobile or stay active even with that running in the background or even with it getting better. And so what I really want people to take away from this by the end of our discussion is that movement can make a lot of things feel better. And importantly, you can still be active and become healthier despite of back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain, especially with the guidance of a coach. And go ahead. Well, there's two limiting beliefs that I often see associated with pain. One is that pain is an abnormal part of life and that if pain exists then there must be something that I'm doing wrong. Mhm. >> And the second is that uh if I feel pain then something's broken and I need to stop doing everything or I need to stop doing something in order to stop the pain because the pain is bad. Limiting belief number one is a problem because it exacerbates the situation by usually causing some sort of overreaction to perceived pain >> or symptoms. And sometimes even just that overreaction can actually make the pain or the perception of the pain worse >> because there are more than just the physical components of pain. There's your psychological uh relationship with the pain, the social relationship with the pain, and the physical aspect of whatever might be causing the pain. But it's not this binary, you know, I touched the hot stove and therefore uh I'm burned. Although obviously that's going to create some pain but generally with something like knee or back or a muscle pain or you know some sort of muscularkeeletal pain there's a lot of factors going into what's causing it and uh if your reaction is um heightened or you know like I said exacerbated because it you associate it with um something that should not be happening. then it limits your the habits or the action that needs to be taken that's actually going to help you move forward and recover from >> whatever might be causing the pain. Mhm. >> The second limiting belief being that uh the only way or the best way to stop pain from happening is to stop moving. is actually counterproductive with the exception of known catastrophic injury. Uh that you can actually diagnose and and uh you know like if you have a scar or a you know uh you just got stitches or something like that. There are times where you need to reduce the stress on whatever that area is. But in the situation you're talking about where it's potentially chronic or semi- chronic knee or back pain, um you know, general low back pain or achy knees or something like that, nine times out of 10, maybe even 99 times out of 100, the worst thing that you can do is stop moving. So talking about habits that I think people who are physically active and consistently managing pain or their training throughout a their life uh often I think kind of fit into one of those two buckets of uh or at least they have overcome those limiting beliefs at some point in their training to the point where they perceive pain as a data point. >> Um, and again I'm talking about the nagging semicronic undiagnosed knee, back, shoulder, elbow pain that comes and goes and you know sometimes it can hurt and sometimes it can't you know it goes away it comes and sometimes it's just there. But if you are the the people that I find that that struggle with consistent training get that pain signal, it immediately triggers fear, >> right? >> Um you know, anger, you know, sadness, emotional kind of cascade of reaction and then they just they choose not to train. Often often those two limiting beliefs are linked to each other. >> Yeah. Whereas someone who continues to build muscle and take care of their bodies, they have this approach of, well, I need to figure out what's going on there without obsessing over it while also asking what can I still do. So they they just, you know, it's like just taking a little detour is often what it ends up looking like for them instead of associating [snorts] anything that they were doing with that pain and that equals bad. So, they're wondering like, "Okay, well, I need to find out something about this." Because sometimes it's it's like something over due to overuse, which would, >> you know, be an indication to change your program a little bit. We see that a lot with like elbow stuff, um, patellar tendinitis, like that's worth being like, "Okay, I know what this is. That means I'm going to change this in my programming right now." It doesn't mean I'm going to stop using my body. >> You'll be choosing a lot more other problems if you go that route. Definitely have to clarify too that I I'm not saying no pain no gain. Push through it. >> Pain is not weakness leaving the body. >> The decision making criteria uh pain is actually a great indicator that something might need probably needs to change >> or to be modified in order to enable training to continue. I I want to absolutely clarify. I'm not saying, "Oh, pain is wonderful. Keep pushing into the pain cave, right?" You know, >> pain is weakness in the body. Like, >> I'm I'm simply saying that >> you can have better decision- making and more sustainable training if you perceive or or you receive the pain symptom >> as a data point, as a signal. Mhm. >> Like the weather, there's bad weather and there's good weather, but you can make decisions based on the weather. You don't have to, you know, get additionally riled up or uh fearful or, you know, react [snorts] to the weather just because it is what it is often, >> unless it's a hurricane. [laughter] But it's such a great example because it's an example of when there's something extreme where you do need to change your behavior and then there are things that are like it's going to be a little bit breezy today. Let's >> Yeah. I mean I think that maybe the I the key difference there is >> whether you consider it an injury or >> just pain. you know that this is, you know, we could go on and on and on about the nuances that have to be taken into account here that >> um uh in but what's I think practical for most people is to use pain symptoms as a way of helping guiding your stress management whether that's load management or exercise selection or volume. Uh those are the levers that you're going to get much faster return on investment in terms of changing uh than what most people do or at least what's popular in the fitness industry to do which is to resort to some crazy supplement protocol doing nothing, right? >> Some sort of rehab therapy, cold plunge, hot bath. uh grin, uh cupping, you know, fill in the blank, um all of the things, by the way, that I've done. I have not done cupping but I you know full disclosure and you know where I'm coming from is somebody who suffered from chronic very painful knee uh tendinitis or tendonopathy >> and several years of back pain and uh you know shooting pain down my leg um and stabbing knee pain uh in you know shoulder pain has come and gone elbow pain wrist pain like I mean I've >> ankles everything, feet, everything that moves at some point in time has been injured. Um, I fortunately have not had any like what I would consider catastrophic muscle belly tears or broken bones or >> um, you know, fullon ACL, MCL kind of injuries. Um although I've had some pretty big knee pops that I don't know if I had gotten an MRI what they would have been diagnosed at. >> But in every single case, the thing that actually finally resolved the symptoms was reducing the stress, giving myself more time to recover, and simply giving my body time to heal. >> And being patient with my training, letting go of expecting myself to be hitting certain numbers just because that's what I have done in the past and doing the work to get back to those numbers >> just as I did the first time going up. And I think this is a a key point that's very difficult once somebody's been training for a long time. We kind of have two different maybe people we're talking to here. >> Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. Yeah, we have someone who >> will >> um they don't the the actions of someone there are two things. Someone who doesn't care about their body [snorts] will keep pushing without making changes. >> And the other person is someone who is so limited that they won't do anything to make themselves too. >> Yeah. So, someone will either keep going too hard or someone will do nothing, >> right? >> Yeah. >> Or they'll hit it hit a point and stop and and won't get started again. >> Yeah. >> So, maybe there's like three kind of common scenarios that I see. Somebody who's never started, somebody who gets started gets hurt and stops >> and somebody who's just beating their head against the wall. >> Yeah. >> And won't stop until somebody says it's okay to do less for a little while. And it all comes back to you need enough stress to create change. That change can only occur when there's enough recovery. And so you have to keep weighing, you know, is there too much stress? Is there not enough stress? >> I mean, this is the conundrum with training is that by definition, you are taking some risk of causing >> something to hurt. You have to in order for something to actually be as enough stimulus >> to drive an adaptation to cause your body to change. Part of that process is by definition trying to find that edge. And I'm not saying that the training should be intentionally trying to f find the edge of getting hurt. >> Um, >> you know, you don't have to get hurt. It's just that there's some probability of it happening. Um, and that's why I'm saying it's it's normal. But the classic saying that we always have, you know, kicked around for years is would you rather tweak your back >> and be weak when you're weak or tweak your back when you're strong, >> right? >> I'd always rather tweak my back while being strong because >> everybody's going to tweak their back. >> Pretty much [laughter] everybody at some point in time is going to tweak their back. I >> You're all going to have degenerative disc dis discorder. >> Everyone. [laughter] >> Yeah. This is where this is where I kind of go back to my limiting belief number one that pain is somehow an abnormal part of life. >> Tell please introduce me to the person who has never experienced pain at any point in their life >> or walk by any table where there are 40 year olds. What are we all freaking talking about? Like, hey, good to see you. Let's eventually talk about our aches and pains and medications. >> Yeah. [laughter] Didn't you guys you just did this at your uh your last trip? you guys had to do like a you first you go through your medical updates [laughter] for like the first meal is just let's get caught up on >> we're like all right health relationship work [laughter] >> well I think we've done a pretty good we've spent enough time saying don't try to cause pain um and we understand that there are real injuries so let's talk about how we work with people who you know they've decided my back hurts I I finally believe that moving more will help me with my back pain or you know I have this really stiff shoulder and I find all these movements hurt but I still know I need to lift. Uh how do we work with those people as coaches? [snorts] How do you work with those people as coaches? So initially it's addressing those two limiting beliefs of often >> that we can use pain as a an excellent data data source. Um >> in fact I actually just got instruction from a doctor who said let pain be your guide. [laughter] Um, so again caveing this with the fact that we're not medical professionals or physical therapists and I'm not allowed to diagnose anything, but I can coach somebody through how they can think about pain. And so much of it comes down to uh help letting people uh pay attention to their body and what's happening and what they feel without judgment. both in terms of it being too much or not enough, but to just what you're feeling is what you're feeling and that's okay. And we can make decisions based on what you're feeling without having to make it mean something. >> So, thing one, pain is going to be part of the process. Thing two, that doesn't mean something's broken. It just means we've got to manage the load or the movement. Yeah, you are not broken. That's one of the most important things to remember. Yeah. So typically what I'm doing is uh assessing and as a general guiding principle tell people that I'm going to have you do certain movements and we're going to you know manage load with number one the priority to reestablish range of full range of motion in whatever the exercise is. Um, and we're going to titrate the load where we're going to gradually increase the load um, until we're doing both full range of motion and it's some amount of loaded human movement. And at no point in time do I want the pain to get above a four out of 10 roughly speaking subjective on the-fly measurement which I I like because one it gets them thinking what's four out of 10. >> I don't know what four out of 10 is. They get to decide what four out of 10 is. >> But generally speaking, that gets people kind of where I say like 10 is you're going to the hospital. One is >> you're you >> don't even you've forgotten about it entirely. Yeah. >> Yeah. Exactly. Uh so I give them the the end criteria for you know for whatever reason that seems to work well that it gives them permission to feel something >> um but it's not aggravating. I I also say, you know, if you feel something sharp and stabby, let's pause. Um, and if you feel like it's getting hot and it's staying kind of hot and tingly after the lift and it's like getting worse with more time >> or or at least it's not dissipating, if you give it time to to, >> you know, chill out, then I then that's our signal that it's probably we probably pushed it a little bit too hard. Mhm. >> Um, if it's feeling sharp and stabby, I'll generally try to find some other variation that works for them. >> Yeah. >> Um, you know, that could be adjusting the grip, that could be adjusting the stance, it could be adjusting the range of motion. Maybe range of motion is not >> achievable on day [clears throat] one. >> Full range of motion, I should say. So, maybe we'll do a partial. Um, it could be a rack pull. It could be a box squat. Um, you know, it could be uh a block bench or pin bench, pin press, something like that. Maybe we do dumbbells instead of barbells so you get a little bit more range of motion or degrees of freedom in your shoulder. So, without going into specifics, um, you know, that's kind of thing one. And um there are even exercises we can go pre-barbell to build strength and confidence in certain movement patterns. Maybe you want to do back extension holds. >> That's one that I've really started to enjoy. >> Yeah. >> U maybe you want to do >> uh just single leg extensions >> with a hold or some sort of u um >> eccentric. >> Well, yeah. Yeah, generally if you can get eccentric range of motion that that that's good, but even a static hold of some sort of position might be a good starting point. >> Yeah. >> Pushing your knees into the wall, what have you. Um, >> yeah. >> So, anyways, you I could go on indefinitely. And to be honest, I don't it's not like I have some set protocol for every single person that I apply every single time. It is a n equals one experiment um with parameters that I'm giving the client to ex to do an experiment with and then report back how it went and >> and then guide them or coach them on how they might be able to modify or push it. Um, and I've done I've helped everything from I mean active right now I have a um an Achilles tendon rupture that did not happen while training. It was a overuse injury from somebody who was doing a lot of hiking. Um, I have a double bicep tear. Uh, that unfortunately did happen from lifting uh against my uh coaching. They ramped back their volume and intensity too much on weighted chins and and dumbbell curls and lat pull downs. >> Too much stress. >> Too much stress too quickly. Um, but we're rehabbing that. um you know any number of back and shoulder and elbow um so and within with each case every single scenario is different especially shoulders by the way I don't know if you've noticed this but like >> backs and knees you can tend to be able to kind of do a similar playbook shoulders it is all over the place >> and it's like different every week with the same person with their [laughter] shoulder >> yeah [gasps] >> so >> if you have something that is painful. If you have a limited range of motion, if you have an old injury, if you have a current injury, that is not a reason a good coach is going to tell you, oh no, this isn't for you. A coach is going to be like, great, bring it on. Let's figure something out. Like it it is we are not sitting here as coaches expecting people to come to us with zero physical issues or limitations. like we are so ready to deal with this stuff. So if that's holding you back, if you're thinking like oh my coach I can't like we're not going to be able to do anything like that is wrong >> and >> right >> you will get someone especially on our team who can help you. >> Yeah. I mean it's kind of like the version of I'll wait till Monday or I'll wait till I'm in shape. You know there's all these things where you kind of kick it down the road until you've reached some >> mythical state in which you're ready to start training. >> Yeah. like no bra. >> That often never happens. >> Uh wherever you're at, >> whether it's body composition, whether it's conditioning, whether it's injuries, whether it's strength levels, >> that is, I think, one of our superpowers is that we've got a team of coaches that have seen it all for literally a decade. By the way, we're coming up on our >> 10 year >> anniversary. some of the coaches I mean we started but >> yeah like people poststroke people missing limbs like people going through chemo like bring it on man [laughter] so it makes me I actually really want to share information about one of our best ebooks it's called the beast of back pain. So, if back pain has made you hesitant to train or you're not sure what you should do and shouldn't be doing, we put together this free guide to help you get started. It'll show you how to approach strength training for a stronger, healthier back with simple principles, video tutorials, and a sample program you can actually follow. So, to get that, go to barbellogic.com/back or just click the link in the show notes and you can download it for free. Definitely recommend checking that out. So, that's it for today's episode of Beast Overburden. If you have any questions, get a hold of us. Go to barbellogic.com. Get on a call. We'll text you. >> Let's go. >> We'll chat about your back. See you next week, everybody. >> Byebye.