I often hear of people training in pain at the gym. I tell you, "No pain, no gain" is nonsense. This applies to the people trying to become Olympic medalists or win the Superbowl. No pain, no gain does not apply in the same way for the everyday person trying to get through a set of back squats. No discomfort, no progress is more appropriate, but unfortunately, that does not have the same ring. Expecting that good training must hurt or cause pain is a limiting belief and will likely lead to falling off the gym going train or, worse, taking time away from the gym due to injury.
I want everyone to experience good hard training. I want you to be able to embrace being uncomfortable and endure a challenging workout without being in debilitating pain. We can make our bodies adaptable and resilient to an array of things. I will break down three elements to incorporate into any training program to ensure a pain-free body.
1) BREATHING:
Most of the time, breathing happens automatically until we notice it. Well-known breathing practices such as box breathing (inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds and hold for 4 seconds), and Wim Hoff breathing, where there is a double inhale and then a short exhale, are just a few of many examples of how we can control the breath to change the state of our bodies. One particular way this can be done in the gym is by grabbing hold of a medicine ball or light sandbag and hugging it. Wrapping your arms around a medicine ball will create space between the shoulder blades and the posterior aspect of the ribcage. By hugging a medicine ball and breathing, it is hard to inhale air into the front side of the body where most of our daily breaths go and instead constrains the inhaled air to go to the backside of the ribcage. This can help relieve tension in the neck, restore the ability to rotate the torso effectively; and for all people with lower back pain due to an overarch in the low back; this exercise is pure gold. The video below demonstrates how to incorporate the medicine ball hugging and breathing exercise.
2) HEAD MOVEMENT:
The body goes where the head goes. If the head is always looking down at a computer or the ground, the rest of the body will start to go in that direction. This explains why a forward head posture turns into a hunched upper back. Rarely do we think much of head movement until we wake up with a kink in our neck. We've all been there when slight head movements in one direction can be devastatingly painful. Consistently moving the head in different directions is often neglected because most of our daily life happens right in front of us, and rarely are we required to look over our shoulders or up at the sky. Even modern cars have a backup and blindside camera. Often convenience comes at a cost. In this example, tight necks are a common problem I see in my profession as a trainer.
No system in the body works alone, which is also true for the head. As the head moves, other areas of the body are impacted. The vestibular system is one important system that can become stagnant without frequent head movement. The vestibular system collects information and then sends it to the brain. The head and eyes are a direct trigger for the vestibular system. If you don't move it, you will lose it. By not moving, the brain is left in the dark. There is a lack of information coming in, and extended periods of stillness or not moving in all the ways our body is capable of will result in a loss of certain qualities. In Tim Anderson's book "Be Naked," he wrote, "If there is no information because the body is not moving, then there must be no need to move. The body will shed costly resources to accommodate the new preferred way of being. In other words, you don't need thick, strong bones if you're reclining in an easy chair."
So change positions often and move your head! Below is an example of how you can do that.
3) TORSO ROTATION:
Speaking of tight necks. A few years back, I had the worst neck kink. I tried pushing through a sticky rep on the bench press, and all the tension I created went right to my neck. I knew right away that I had hurt my neck. I finished the workout, but I could feel the pain coming on. Fast forward to the following day, and boom, the worst pain I have ever felt in my neck. I was close to cancelling my whole day because of the pain, but I decided not to. I went to the gym, trained a few clients and then had an hour free. I did various things, trying to find movements I could do without getting a Zeus jolt of lightning in my neck. I found two activities that worked perfectly, and they involved torso rotation. Enter the cable machine. Below are the two exercises I used to reduce my neck pain, from Zeus lightning bolt to minimal discomfort.
In both exercises, I am focused on rotating at the torso and keeping my head and eye gaze at the same spot throughout. Turning my neck hurt so much, but rotating everything underneath my neck felt fine and caused no pain. Doing these in the half kneeling position as I was helped me connect to rotating fully at the ribcage and torso. If you do not have access to a cable machine, you can always attach a light band to a squat rack or jam it in a closed door and have the same effect.
These two exercises are great as a warmup or finisher to any workout. I generally do both the press and the row for 2-5 sets with high reps, around 20-30 per side, and focus on inhaling through my nose and exhaling through pursed lips when exerting force. Frequently inserting exercises into your workouts that put emphasis on torso rotation will go a long way in keeping your body young and supple—trigger warning. Frequent torso rotation can do more for your flexibility training than holding static stretches. I know I said it; torso rotation is the panacea to tightness in the body. Boom, now go forth and rotate.
WRAP UP:
The intention behind this article is for the motivated gym goer to have actionable items to use when the impacts of hard training start to set in. There is so much that can be gained from hard training, but only if that hard training can be repeated consistently over time. Incorporating the three elements discussed above will go a long way in keeping you on the training floor and discovering what your body is capable of.
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