M.A.D About Pain: A Smarter Way to Train Through Injury

Most people training with pain make one of two mistakes.

They push through regardless -- grinding out reps while their body sends warning signals. Or they stop completely -- convinced any pain means damage, and damage means rest.

Neither is right. And both slow your progress.

Here's a real world example. I was working with a client managing chronic knee pain. During a barbell back squat he flagged pain at a specific point in the movement -- not at the top, not at the bottom, but at a particular angle mid-rep. The instinct would have been to reduce the load.

Instead, I tested the opposite. After a rest, we increased the weight by a small percentage.

The pain disappeared!

He completed the set -- and the next two -- with no pain at all. Only for it to return once the exercise was finished.

This is not a fluke. It is how pain works and the body compensates -- sometimes to our detriment, sometimes to our benefit. And it is why understanding it changes everything.

Pain is information, not a verdict.

After 30 years working with clients managing injuries, chronic pain, and post-surgery recovery, here is the simple system I use before every set. Rate your pain before you lift. Every time. Not just at the start of the session -- before each set of each exercise, use a 0-10 scale.

The sign most people miss.

A pain score of 7 often announces itself before you even start the set. Watch for preemptive breath holding -- that involuntary intake, brace or muscle tension before a movement. Your nervous system already knows this is going to hurt. That's your body waving a very big red flag.

Listen to it and you'll recover faster, with less stress and increased confidence to rehab more frequently.

One more thing worth knowing.

Pain can reduce as you perform more sets. An increase in load can sometimes reduce or even eliminate pain mid-exercise -- only for it to return once you stop.

This is not imaginary and it is not dangerous. It is your nervous system responding to demand. The key is monitoring it at every stage using the scale above.

And importantly, no pain does not automatically mean you have fully recovered. And pain does not always mean you should stop. It means you need more information -- more time to experiment with load, rep ranges, range of motion, recovery between sets and sessions, speed, pause duration. This system gives you that.

Build habits, not hurdles.