If anyone ever tells you that exercise doesn’t involve at least some level of discomfort, then you shouldn’t trust them. There’s nothing wrong with a little discomfort, especially when it comes to maintaining the fitness and figure that will benefit your life. Accepting that, occasionally, you’re going to ache the morning after a workout or sustain the occasional blister is part and parcel of accepting a fitness regime into your life.

One of the ways in which this area tends to become muddied is in regards to good and bad pain. It might sound odd to someone not used to the concept, but there is such a thing as good pain when exercising. It’s commonly referred to as “the burn”; the feel of your body working incredibly hard, the stress of exertion on your limbs, the tightness in your chest. If you’re feeling the burn, then you’re really pushing your body – and that’s nothing but a good thing.

There is a point, however, in which the burn becomes a raging fire that you shouldn’t ignore – and learning to tell the difference between the two is vital for the sake of your health.

Know Your Limits

Given that you’ve been wise enough to learn about the importance of exercise and how to fit it into your life and ideology, it’s fair to assume that you’re an intelligent kind of person. That means you can trust yourself to be able to learn the difference between good and bad pain, rather than relying on outside sources.

In fact, relying on outside sources to decide what is and isn’t acceptable in terms of pain is generally a bad idea. For one thing, we all have vastly different pain thresholds; what a friend of yours thinks is fine might be far more than you can bear. So never be convinced to do something or continue an activity if it’s hurting you more than you think you can stand.

Exercise Should Be Enjoyable

You know what’s not enjoyable? Pushing yourself so far, trying to convince yourself it’s just the burn that you’re feeling and not your body screaming for help, and injuring yourself. This is a real and present danger if you don’t pay attention to your body. If you’re hurting yourself on a consistent basis, then you’re going to begin to dread exercise. After all, few of us engage with an activity that is actively causing us distress on a regular basis.

Don’t Stop At The First Sign Of Hurt

Of course, you could read all of the above and think that any minor discomfort is a reason to desist from whatever it is you’re doing. That’s taking the issue too far in the opposite direction. At the beginning, we touched on the idea that you do need some physical discomfort in exercise – so if you stop the minute things get rough, then you’re not going to be exerting yourself in the way that your body needs.

A simple differential is enough to halt this problem in its tracks. Ask yourself: am I stopping because I want to, or because my body is telling me I have to? Only when you can answer the latter in the affirmative is it time to call a halt to your session or – at the very least – switch to a low-impact activity for awhile.

July 12, 2017/by admin