Should exercise hurt? You may have asked this at least once in your life. When you start a new exercise program, you might experience pain or discomfort during or after exercise. If you’re training for marathon you may have pain as you increase your mileage. When you’re rehabbing from an injury, some of the exercises may hurt.
When is this ok and when should you be concerned? This is something that we talk a lot about with our patients as Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine. The good news is, we have answers for you!
When asking “should exercise hurt”, it’s a good idea to look at when the hurt is occurring. If you are feeling some mild muscle soreness when you move the next 1 or 2 days after a workout, that can be a normal response to exercise.
If the soreness is so intense that you are having significant trouble moving, it may be a sign that you did too much too soon. Decreasing the volume of exercise or intensity of exercise or both can help prevent this from happening again.
The second time you may think “should exercise hurt” is during exercise. The answer to this can be a bit more complicated.
Some pain with exercise can actually be required to get the stimulus you want. This is especially common when exercising for physical therapy. Rehabbing tendon injuries, low back injuries, and even joint arthritis can often require some level of pain to get the best results. So how do you know if it is the right amount?
How Pain Works
Understanding how pain works can really help you to answer the question “should exercise hurt?” When you exercise, nerves in your tendons, muscles, and joints send a ton of information to your brain. Some of that is information on pain.
When recovering from injury, you load the damaged area as well as the nerves in that area that process pain. Loading the damaged area as well as the nerves helps that tissue to heal, and the nerves to experience less pain.
Loading too much though will cause more tissue damage and cause your nerves to feel more pain. It’s kind of like cooking a perfect over easy egg:
The egg above is not yet done but pretty close. It won’t taste as good as a perfect over easy egg will. This is like having no pain during your exercise when you’re in physical therapy.
If every exercise is session is like this, you might get a little bit better but you’re going to have a tough time achieving your goals. Your just not stimulating the injured area enough.
This egg is slightly overcooked. It will still taste really good, but not as good as the perfect egg. This is like having a 3-4/10 pain when you exercise in physical therapy.
You’re getting enough stimulus to get you to your goals, but you might have more discomfort than you’d like. It may not feel as good during the exercises, but it’s better in the long run.
This egg is burnt. No one wants to eat this egg. This is like having 6 out of 10 pain or more during physical therapy exercise.
The injured tissue is likely more damaged and the nerves in this area are likely now more sensitive to pain. Your recovery will take longer because of this and you may have to start from the beginning again.
What About Exercise for Fitness or Performance?
These same principles can apply to exercise for fitness or performance as well. Some discomfort during exercise is normal and good. Any type of sharp pain, or pain that lingers for more than a day or two after exercise is too much.
Should exercise hurt? If you tried following the guidelines above and you’re still not sure, we can help you!
At Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine in Alexandria and Springfield, VA, we’re experts at helping people determine if their pain with exercise is normal or too much.
Call us at 703-299-3111, or click here to request an appointment.
A member of our team will schedule you an appointment with one of our expert physical therapists.
What happens if you don’t have a plan to determine if your exercise should hurt?
- You develop overuse injuries that make you sit out of exercise altogether
- You don’t exercise hard enough and never make progress toward your goals
- You stop exercising and become more likely to get other diseases and injuries
But if you do find out if your exercise should hurt you can live the confident and active life you want.
If you want an expert to listen to your unique problems and guide you to success, a Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine physical therapist in Alexandria or Springfield, VA will create a plan specifically for you.
You’ll feel confident that you have the knowledge and ability to stay active and do all the things you want.
Call us at 703-299-3111, or click here to schedule your appointment and get started.
Working to keep you living your best life,
The Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine Team
