No Pain No Gain?

(Including exercising with an auto-immune condition)

Listener Request!

Let's talk about pain or discomfort you might experience when working out. 

Should you work through it? Is it ever good? What about when you're sick - workout or not? In this episode we cover;

• Coming to the gym with an injury

• Auto-immune conditions

• When you’re not well

Injuries

• How injuries occur and types of injuries

• How you can rehabilitate a muscle and make it Stronger by using it

• Movement is GOOD for our bodies

• Movement increases blood flow to an injury helping it to heal

• Physio Exercises - love them or hate them  - do them as often as you can

• If an exercise a physio prescribes seems strange remember it’s about how your body functions, so often a physio exercise may not appear to affect the injured area

Why do we get sore after a workout - what's normal and what's not?

• Soreness is caused by overload creating micro-tears

• Micro-tears are how Strength Training works

• The main cause of micro-tears are eccentric contractions, which is a lowering of the weight where the muscle if lengthening under load

• Stretching helps by lengthening and smooth out the muscle fibres and reduce the soreness

Skeletal Pain - if you feel pain in your bones and joints, stop what you are doing, seek advice from a professional.

Key take-aways;

• IT’S OK TO SLOW DOWN!

• Pain is not the same as discomfort.

• Pain does not validate your workout as a good or beneficial workout (and neither does sweating btw!)

Exercising with an auto-immune condition (E.g. Fibromyalgia, polymyalgia, rhumatoid arthritis)

• When you are living with a life limiting condition, and you want to be living your best life - go and do your exercise.

• The most immediate benefit of exercise is your mental health, so exercise is really beneficial for anyone with an auto-immune condition. 

• Moving your body is how it was designed to work best. 

• If you have an auto-immune condition learn how exercise can make your body feel better, not put it under more stress.

What about exercising when you feel ill?

• Don’t workout when you are not very well!

• There are no benefits of working out if you might be coming down with something

• Once those critical few days are passed, get back to it, move your body, raise your core temp, get the blood flow going