JOINT PAIN? YOU CAN STILL TRAIN!

Joint pain! Just typing it out scares me, what can I say? It’s terrible. Every little normal movement can be agony when your joints hurt, talk less of lifting weights or any other form of exertion. The worst thing about it is the emotional toll it takes on you and your ability to work out. Compare joint pain with regular muscular pain, with normal muscle soreness you feel happy, in fact I have a friend in the gym who calls sore muscles “sweet pain” he loves it! Sore muscles give you a sense of power and accomplishment i.e. “ I must have done something  good to feel this bad!”

However joint pain is its opposite twin, it leaves you feeling anxious and depressed, “will this pain ever go away?” or “it hurts so bad, I will never step foot in that gym ever again!”

I’ve been there, and felt it and in fact I am still feeling it, I have joint pain in both knees and my right shoulder , no thanks to bad lifting form in the early years when I had little knowledge, and trying to lift too much! So I live with the consequences, and guess what I still lift weights! Joint pain is bad but it’s no excuse to chicken out, there are a few tricks I have learned over the years to help me train in spite of my difficulties.

Today I want to share with you some tips that will help you train through the pain and also help you avoid further damage to your joints while you heal. Joint pain is a fact of life, as you age so do your joints, but you can mitigate the damage with these tips. I guarantee it!

Thanks and do have a wonderful weekend!

1.       BEFORE YOU START ANYTHING WARM UP!

You have probably heard or read this a thousand times; well you are hearing it again today and with good reason too. You probably think you don’t have time for it right? Wrong! It’s a sorry excuse and you should discard it today, warming up help blood circulate in your joints and surrounding muscles, this makes them more flexible and improve your performance while reducing joint pain at the same time. Your warm up should include light weight sets of the exercises you intend to do i.e if you want to squat, start with 3 sets of light weights just to get your muscles and knees warmed up. You can also jog, skip, and run on the treadmill, whatever you need to get warm.

2.       IF IT HURTS, STOP IT NOW!

This should be a no brainer, but never underestimate human pride and stubbornness! Whenever you engage in any exercise and you feel severe pain in your knees, shoulder or elbow it’s a good idea to stop it immediately and review your form. It could be that your positioning is bad or the weights are just too heavy. For example if doing bench presses with barbells causes you shoulder pain, bring your hands closer together and if that doesn’t help, try switching to dumbbell presses to save your joints from aggravated injury that could put you out for weeks or months.

3.       USE STRICT FORM!

What is form? It’s the way you carry out your exercise i.e your positioning and movement, strict form means executing the exercise as close to its text book form as is humanly possible. Bad form has damaged and injured countless people in the gym. Yours truly is a living example of joint pain that comes with bad form. So please, learn the correct form of every exercise you execute, don’t rely on the wisdom of the overbuilt gym rat with the huge chest and tiny legs, please! Also do not rush your exercises; a slow and steady rhythm will save you a lot of joint pain in the future. If you rush your workouts, momentum can put a lot of stress on your joints, tendons and ligaments –especially if you are pushing a heavy load. You may have to go lighter when using strict form, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

4.       DON’T TRAIN TO FAILURE!

Training to failure, this means training your muscles till temporary exhaustion wears you out. The reason you should avoid training to failure with joint pain is that while training to failure is a key component in muscle building, it’s not so good when you are nursing knee or shoulder pain; it offers little benefit and plenty of risk. This is because training to failure causes your form to suffer, which can lead to stress on your joints and other connective tissue.

5.       NEVER LOCK OUT YOUR JOINTS WHEN WORKING OUT!

Locking out, simply means extending a particular body part to its full range of motion during an exercise i.e pushing dumbbells overhead till your arms and elbows are completely straight. Locking out can increase the tension between two bones in a joint, shifting the stress from the muscle directly to the joint. The stress is compounded when you are lifting very heavy loads as affects the knees in squats and leg presses. When you are doing shoulder, chest and leg exercises, stop your movement about 10 degrees short of full extension, this will help reduce the risk of injury, and your joints will be grateful for years to come!

Thanks, and do have a wonderful weekend!!