No Pain, No Gain, Is Insane

Pain is your body's way of telling you that something is wrong. Period. It's your body telling you that it's had enough. Ignoring this message often leads to injury and/or chronic pain. Many personal trainers are under the impression that they need to push their clients to exhaustion. That the person should feel pain after a workout or the workout wasn't any good.

Some people actually get addicted to the punishment (kinda like the Stockholm syndrome of the prisoner attaching to his jailer). This is simply not respecting the body's limits. Many personal trainers are in chronic pain themselves. It's the dirty little secret of the industry. When we look up to people who abuse their bodies, we put ourselves at risk for injury and chronic pain.

There has been a theory that you must injure the muscle in order to make it stronger. This is simply not true and it causes inflammation and damage to your body. Here's a wonderful video from a body builder who went through years of pain and discovered that when he stopped abusing his body, he succeeded in his goals in ways that he never could when he was hurting himself.

We've all had sore muscles from overwork. The first time I ride my bike in the summer, my thigh muscles will feel the work. So I don't go really far for the first few rides until my muscles are more accustomed to the exercise. Over the summer, the muscles gain strength and stamina without ever being in pain - a little initial discomfort that goes away quickly and then just a gradual increase in muscles mass without any strain or stress.

In Ayurveda, balance is being comfortable. If you are in pain, you are not comfortable and you are not in balance. Most people have misalignments due to bone structure (which can be treated using the Hesch Method which I utilize along with Thai Massage), and/or muscle imbalances that set them up for injury. Without a proper assessment of range of motion and muscle length testing, the exercises that you may be doing at the gym may be making your pain worse.

Ayurveda also teaches us to exercise by breathing through the nose. If you start breathing through the mouth, you have put your physiology into fight or flight - a stress response. This is not health. This is ignoring the body's signals to slow down. This is now backed by scientific study and many high level athletes are now training with nasal breathing. Dr. John Doulliard wrote an excellent book on healthy exercise which you can purchase here.

I've seen many clients sent to conventional physiotherapy (which definitely can be helpful at the right time), and it just makes everything worse because the muscles are already too tight on one side of the body. For example, shoulders rounding forward (like in frozen shoulder) is a pattern of the muscles in the front chest and underarms being shortened, and weakness/strained muscles in the upper and mid back . If the person tries to strengthen the weak back muscles BEFORE stretching and lengthening the chest, underarm area, biceps, etc, they will make the situation worse.

I have also seen many Yoga students and teachers, overdo forward bending and neglect the balancing backbend poses. Most Yoga teachers in the west do not breath properly and teach breathing exercises like the 3 part breath in a way that is detrimental to health.

Thai Massage works to re-align the body. It brings balance and relieves pain (even pain that has been diagnosed as arthritis). It can alleviate conditions like frozen shoulder, hip pain due to misalignments, and neck and shoulder pain due to improper breathing.

I am now offering Thai Massage Alignment Assessment complete with a personalized Yoga practice to help you address the imbalances that are causing you pain. For the complete package, I recommend an Ayurvedic Diet and Lifestyle Assessment to address other possible causes of inflammation. Consider me your Ayurvedic Personal Trainer!

Please be kind to your body and I wish you a happy, pain free summer!

#exercise #injury #pain