5 things I had to change to prevent pain while lifting

Starting your weightlifting journey is exciting. You progress quickly, feel stronger and healthier, and you start getting excited for each workout. Inevitably, you begin experiencing pain somewhere down the line. Your progress slows, you can’t figure out what you’re doing wrong, and frustration builds. Don’t worry. I’ve been there too. With a decade of weightlifting under my belt (the first few years of which were marked by completely irresponsible lifting), I’ve had pain in just about every muscle and joint in my body. After years of study, I’ve identified five main reasons that explain pain in the majority of the weightlifting population (besides insufficient warm-ups, because duh).

Mobility issues

When’s the last time you squatted past 90 degrees? After experiencing leg pain yet again on a squat, I realized I couldn’t answer the question. Toddlers can sit ATG for hours at a time, and they have significantly weaker legs than me. That’s our natural range of motion as a human being, but we lose that mobility through years of not utilizing it. How many of us spend the whole day seated, shoulders rounded and hunched forward? My knees are screaming on squats because I was asking them to flex (against weighted resistance, no less) to a degree they hadn’t in years. I got shoulder pain on chest flyes because my shoulders had been locked in a rounded position. Limited mobility is a recipe for disaster, and puts you at risk for sprains and strains. Our modern lifestyle and improper training are main causes of this. Mobility limitations are often the first thing I address when starting a client on a new training program.

Training with a limited range of motion/compromised form

Similarly, training without utilizing the full range of motion is a major cause of injuries. When I was just starting off, I would see guys and girls pressing dumbbells twice the size of mine. I started obsessing over what weight I “should” be lifting instead of how much I actually could. I over-activated my shoulders on bench press, used my trapezius on lateral raises, and rounded my back on pushdowns. I was lucky to escape without any major injuries. Even so, I caused muscle imbalances and mobility issues that took a long time to resolve. Now, I focus on how much intensity I can siphon out of each rep with a weight I can control through my full range of motion, and haven’t been injured since.

Core weakness

When I began training, I was enamored with the classic physiques of the ‘50s. I searched every crevice of the internet for the notes of guys like Steve Reeves and Reg Park, and followed their advice to a T. Given that and hearing from everyone online that “abs are made in the kitchen,” for many years I skipped ab training entirely, yet I couldn’t figure out why my back was hurting on certain lifts. I would have back pain when backpacking, or even just when sitting. That’s not supposed to happen. If your core is weak, you will be lacking the strength to stabilize your body in virtually every movement you could possibly do. Do your damn crunches.

Overtraining

There is a prevalent mentality (especially among men) that training needs to always be done to complete failure–that you need to punish your body for it to grow. This is not a healthy mentality, especially with longevity in mind. That doesn’t mean you get a pass for not breaking a sweat, but max-effort sets should be used intentionally and not constantly. At the peak of my training volume, I was training two or more hours daily, six days a week. After the first day of the week, I would progressively feel worse. By the end of the week, the minor pains were adding up. Your body knows best–pain is a sign that something is wrong. Generally, pushing through pain is bad for you in the short and long term.

Poor spinal stabilization

Similar to the aforementioned core strength issue, without a stable spine, everything is compromised. Whether you’re just sitting or are performing a one-rep max squat, all your joints (with your spine being the center) need to be organized to ensure a stable kinetic chain. The more unstable, the more imbalanced the transfer of force will be. I spent many years with poor spinal alignment/stabilization. Ironically and luckily, this caused me enough discomfort to never try to go too heavy, so I never hurt myself seriously, but many others are not so lucky. If you take only one piece of advice from this article, let it be the importance of proper spinal stabilization.

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Blog Post Title Three

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Four

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.