Pain is normal. I know this might seem crazy coming from a physical therapist, but everyone has pain and sometimes that’s ok and perfectly normal.
I think the biggest reason I’m relaying this message is to help people understand that we should always be moving forward, and too often we use a small amount of pain to stop doing activity because that’s what we learned was helpful 20 years ago (RICE is a very outdated acronym when something hurts – we need movement and load to heal).
Too often small amounts of pain stimulate fear and provoke negative thoughts about movement or training. “What if it gets worse?” “What if I delay the healing?” More often than not, movement is actually the solution to painful positions or forces.
Pain is just sensory information. It can be really valuable to tell us when something is wrong and needs to be addressed. But not all of the time. Sometimes it’s just a part of life that we gotta shrug our shoulders about and move on.
***Not all pain is created equal. I can’t tell you whether your pain is ok to work through or not without listening to your story and seeing you move. So please don’t generalize this to mean that everyone should always be working through pain because that is not the case at all. Pain that lasts a while, worsens with activity, or progresses over time should be addressed by a professional.
But what I do believe is if more people just accepted that some days things are going to hurt a little, it will bother you a lot less and allow you to continue moving forward to actually finding the solution. Yes, when you get older things hurt a bit more. When you train hard you’re going to feel it a bit more. Sometimes you’re gonna sleep wrong and have a cranky neck or back. But rather than using it as an excuse to stop exercising, maybe we could say “I’m getting older and things hurt more so maybe I should move more than I used to.” Or “I woke up with a cranky neck, maybe it’s a sign that I should probably work on some neck mobility or strength.”
Let’s not fear pain, and instead embrace it a bit more so that we can ultimately move forward.