Why No Pain, No Gain Is A No Go
First off, that title is pretty good right. Say that ten times fast.
In all seriousness, the concept of “no pain, no gain” refuses to go away. To be clear, this is not us as Physical Therapists advocating low level exercises and never pushing yourself. However, there is a difference between “good” training and “hard” training.
Any coach or PT can program a session that feels hard and leaves people feeling like they got crushed.
It takes real intelligence, good assessments and nuanced coaching to put together and execute programs that balance challenge vs. recovery. Let’s talk more about why “no pain, no gain” is a no-go and how we can be smarter about training.
What You Need To Know About RPE
We wrote about the concept of Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) in a previous blog, but let’s cover it in more detail here.
RPE is a measure of subjective intensity. Basically this means how hard something feels to you. There are measures of objective intensity as well. These are things such as percentage of 1 rep max, heart rate, etc.
Subjective measures (especially RPE) of intensity are great because they don’t require any special equipment or training. We use these concepts with our patients and clients all the time to measure the intensity of a rehab or training session.
How To Start Using RPE In Your Training
Start tracking the RPE of your workouts from 1-10. A rating of 1 means you could do this all day, a 10 means it was an absolute maximum effort and you had nothing left to give.
As you keep track of these numbers, you will gain more context and get better at consistently rating the intensity of your workouts. It also helps you to understand how your body is responding to different types of workouts and recovery strategies.
For example, your programming may call for you to do the same workout a couple weeks in a row. One week it is a 6/10 RPE, the next its a 9/10. If you didn’t change your weights, sets or reps much, this is an indication that you were either not prepared for the workout, didn’t recover well after your last workout or something similar.
You can see how this would be useful. If you weren’t tracking RPE, you would just think “wow, that workout sucked today,” and just move on. If you are tracking RPE, you can specifically compare to previous sessions and start to understand your body better. That will pay huge dividends in terms of performance and avoiding injury.
The most dedicated athletes take time to log and review their training sessions. You should too.
When To Train vs. Perform
Just like any other kind of exercise, pushing yourself to the max has its place. However, anybody who has tried to do this kind of work for long periods of time knows it isn’t sustainable. It isn’t supposed to be sustainable because you shouldn’t be doing this kind of session very frequently.
There is a distinct difference between training and performing.
Training is the day to day work you do to get better, stronger, more fit. Training is incorporating various kinds of exercises and sessions to work on strength, conditioning, mobility and recovery. It is balanced, nuanced and sustainable over the long term.
Performing is a competition, attempt at a 1 rep max or personal record. Performing is peaking, testing yourself on one specific metric. It is all out, maximal and short term.
We use intelligent and nuanced training to balance challenge and recovery and make ourselves better. Then when the time comes, we peak for a competition or new personal record attempt.
Effort and Intensity Are Not the Same Thing
This doesn’t mean you don’t put all your effort into each session. It means applying your effort effectively. It means staying focused and training with intention. This is just as important when doing a basic conditioning workout to improve your aerobic base as it is when trying for a personal record.
Effort and focus should be high regardless of what you are doing. Intensity varies with each exercise and session.
Going back the the RPE concept, if all of your workouts are 8+/10, you need to seriously consider if what you are doing is sustainable. In our experience, if an athlete is constantly at these very high intensities, either they are not recovering well (so workouts feel harder than they should), or they are bound to end up with some kind of overuse injury or loss of motivation.
Your body simply can’t recover from high frequency maximum sessions.
Think of it this way. If your boss asked you to work 14-16 hour days 7 days a week for months, would you be able to do that? Probably not. And even if you could, the quality of your work would suffer and it would definitely not be sustainable. Something would eventually break down.
When it comes to your training intensity, it needs to vary. Intelligently push yourself when appropriate and also understand that you need to allow for easier sessions. Not only does this allow you to sustain your program over the long term, it will also help you be a more well-rounded athlete.
Consistent improvement over time will always lead to the best results.
When Going All Out Is Appropriate
Ok, we’ve talked about why pushing yourself to the limit at every workout isn’t a good idea, but there are definitely times when it is appropriate. It’s important to push yourself both mentally and physically, but we will say again that it must be done intelligently.
So, when is going all out appropriate?
Competition is a chance to prove yourself
It should be pretty obvious why you want to go all out during competition. That is what its for!
Take all the improvements you’ve made in your training and show them off. This helps illustrate the point of how infrequent these kinds of all out efforts should be. Even the most dedicated athletes don’t compete that often. Of if they do (think of a sport like baseball, basketball, etc.), this is for a finite amount of time and managing recovery and injury risk is a huge part of their day to day.
Getting some variety into your training, having some fun
Sometimes our training gets stagnant. We reach plateaus, we lose motivation. Pushing yourself to establish a new personal record can be fun and motivating. Just try not to do this every time you need a bit of a boost.
Recalibrating programming and/or subjective rating of intensity (RPE)
It can also be appropriate to max out simply because it has been a while since you’ve done it. We do this quite often with our athletes who are returning to sport after an injury.
They tend to be a little hesitant and forget what it feels like to push themselves hard. So I will have then do a set to failure so they can feel what a 10/10 effort feels like. Then this allows us to re-calibrate their programming intensity to an appropriate level moving forward.
Train Smart AND Hard
Remember the difference between training and performing. Both things have value, but if you’re not a high level athlete, make sure the majority of your time is spent training, not constantly pushing yourself to the limit.
Start tracking RPE and other metrics from your workouts and pushing yourself intelligently when necessary. You’ll have less injuries, perform better and your routine will be sustainable.
If you need help optimizing your training or rehabbing an injury, we specialize in helping active people get back to their best.
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