Should I Exercise If I Have Pain?

You’re active, and you’re experiencing pain… what should you do?

Should you avoid all movement?

Should you push through it?

Movement is medicine, but here are some guidelines to follow that we give to any of our clients that are experiencing pain when we are working with them to help them get out of pain:

First, let’s understand the pain scale we use from 1-10.

1 is like a whisper, you feel something, you know it’s there, but it’s nothing you’re really thinking twice about.

2-4 is increasing discomfort

5 is really where we are starts in to talk about pain, as opposed to discomfort.

6-9 is increasing pain, maybe sharp, or constant high level, and disrupting things like sleep or ability to focus.

10 means you’re going to the hospital.

Now into the guidelines:

1. As long as pain/discomfort is a 4/10 or less, you can continue doing what you're doing(assuming this is where it started when you began exercising that day).

2. If the pain is staying the same throughout reps/exercise, or decreasing rep to rep or movement to movement, you can keep going.

3. If you’re dealing with 5/10 pain or higher, or it’s getting worse rep to rep or movement to movement, something needs to change.

You can try: going lighter, changing angles, changing ranges of motion, changing the movement entirely.

Some additional things we want to pay attention to:

How are things feeling 24-48 hours after exercise? Did pain or discomfort decrease? Thats a good sign you're on the right track. Did it increase? You might have overdone it.

Ultimately, movement is the key to getting out of pain, but pain can be complex.

If you don’t want to have to figure this out on your own, and you want to work with a professional who can create a plan and help you navigate getting out of pain and back to the things you want to do with certainty, please reach out.

We are happy to assess you and provide a clear plan!

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