All pain no gain?

Covered in a layer of sweat but without feeling and looking like he just did a workout with running and burpees he said “wow, you have a great ability to judge what to do and how much to push me in each session”.

This was something one of our clients said after a recent session in which I knew from the outset that the simple act of showing up to the gym in the first place was about as positive a step he could have taken that day. How did I know he didn’t have that pop and energy that’s needed to get though a tough session? I can see it in the warm up because everything looked slower, tighter and there was simply not the same enthusiasm for training that particular day.

I’m a big believer in the more often you show up and train the luckier you get. What I mean by this is that if you can get moving in ANY capacity more often,then the stronger, fitter and more mobile you will become. However, with frequency (training 4+ times per week) comes the importance of being smart enough or have a coach tuned in enough to regulate the dose needed for that session.

The fitness industry loves to push the idea of more is better and bolster that training philosophy with meaningless phrases, such as, “no pain no gain”, “while you were resting your competition is out there making progress”, “push to your limits to grow stronger than you ever were before” etc.

I couldn’t more violently disagree and and the people that propagate these beliefs s are often the ones that are injured, need more rest, recovery and self love.

The high frequency of training some people like or need to put in to get to a high level personally or for competition will and does work when you’re dealing with people that BOTH move exceptionally well and are young enough to tolerate that volume, but as the athlete or individual develops (gets stronger, fitter and faster) their ability to recover does NOT increasein proportion to their other increased physical capacities. Ask anyone that has a long training historywhat would they do different if they had a chance to do it all again knowing what they know now and the answers are always the same –

A) I wish I would have eaten better and sorted my nutrition (very often those that train a lot have terrible food quality and don’t eat enough)

B) I wish I would have trained less, took more days off to recover and work on mobility

It’s NEVER – I wish I would have trained harder and more often.

The problem is that people associate more frequency and higher intensity with better results. Of course there is SOME truth in that but the reality is that training needs to be carefully balanced and it looks more like a bell curve, where once we exceed our body’s ability to to recover from a session, performance and progress drops off.

We often work with clients that just want us to beat the living heck out of them and can get frustrated if we don’t have them in a sweaty mess at the end of every single session. These people are almost always chronically fatigued, have gotten weaker, sore ALL the time yet only feel ‘normal’ while training so they falsely associate training with making them feel better.

We also have noticed an increase in people that want to punish themselves in training because they have a poor body image and think that excessive training and dieting is going to make them feel better, when what’s needed is to be kinder to themselves, spend some time practicing mindfulness, meditation or simply writing a gratitude journal where they can express what they can be thankful for in life.

This self flagellation can also be seen in people that feel guilty about having not trained in a while or ate poorly at the weekend so absolutely kill themselves at the start of the week, eat insufficiently and wonder why they can barely walk come Thursday.

You know what the craziest thing is though? People actually seek out exercise programs that are extreme because they MUST offer increased benefits and finally allow them to out train their terrible nutrition. This is often is pushed as a training philosophy by coaches and trainers who themselves are constantly injured, are either severely underweight or overweight and who think this is the right approach to training.

You don’t need a “boost” a “detox” or anything that remotely looks like that, you simply need to train in a consistent manner that allows the maximum amount of benefit with the minimal amount of recovery needed.

Overall, yes you need to train and eat well frequently to get good results but the degree to which intensity is applied needs to be tempered so you avoid burn out and injuries.

Can injuries and burn out happen regardless? Of course but exercise is something that should enhance your life outside of the gym rather than making the gym or training into something you grow to hate and regret.

So maybe you need to stop looking for a supplement, new exercise toy or rub on gel that’s going to help with your constant joint pain and fatigue and ask yourself– is no pain no gain a smart training philosophy?