It is often said
that in order for a fitness workout to be successful, it is necessary to endure
pain. I'm sure that all of you have heard of the saying, "No pain, no
gain," which is a popular belief among both men and women in terms of
exercising. However, the necessity of pain during a workout is put into
question in this article, Feeling Pain written by Pirkko Markula. Markula
focuses on the feminine aspect of the issue, in which he says that women have
adopted male principles in that they often ignore and endure the pain they
experience while exercising because they feel as if pain is an essential
element of fitness. Many women think of pain as just being "part of the
game," such as in running and other physically demanding sports. However,
this article addresses the fact that women athletes must learn to differentiate
between the different types of pain that one may endure.
There are two
different types of pain that one may experience while exercising -- good pain
and bad pain. Good pain refers to the everyday "hurt" that is
associated with muscles whereas pain in
joints, ligaments, and bones indicate bad pain. One must have the ability to
stop when they realize that they are enduring bad pain and when it becomes too
much for his or her body to handle. While pain is considered an essential
aspect of many sport women's experiences, it can become a problem when the
female chooses to ignore pain and allow it to become "numb" to their
bodily feelings, such as in dancing. In the article, the author talks about a
study that he conducted of dancers and their experiences with pain. He found
that dancers are known to accept pain as a necessary part of their culture and
many have said that they need to be in pain in order to know that they are
pushing their limits. They have some difficulty, however, trying to distinguish
between pain and injury and thus, do not always realize when they pass from
feeling pain to actually injuring their bodies. They have the determined
mindset that as long as they have the ability to move, the pain can be ignored.
While exercising, it
may be difficult to feel as if you are really working hard without enduring
some kind of pain. However, this article supports that the most important part
of exercising is learning when the pain has the capability of passing from just
a simple "hurt" to a possible injury. Pain is an expected and
accepted aspect of exercise culture. During physical activities, bodily pain is
usually a sign that something is wrong. While dancers and athletes are aware of
this fact, they feel as if they cannot afford to stop due to the requirements
of their performance culture. So now, I am asking you for your thoughts. Does
working hard have to be painful? Do you think that exercise needs to hurt in
order to attain maximum performance? How can you distinguish between good and
bad pain during an exercise? How is an exerciser to know when to push his or
her body or when to stop?
I don't think that exercising should be painful. I used to be a dancer and one of my teachers explained the "good pain" and "bad pain" idea. She said that she didn't like that "good pain" had the word pain in it because most of us associated it with hurting. She used to terms "sore" and "bad pain" instead. The way she explained it was, if you are working to the best of your ability when you stretch and dance then the morning after you should feel sore, or a slight pain in your muscles. It was good pain if you could stretch and the pain goes away, if the pain remained constant then you were experiencing bad pain and you should go to the doctor.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a good way to judge pain. As a dancer I know that pain is used as a barrier. You stop dancing when the pain becomes to much but until that point you work through it. I remember on of my dance competition my best friend sprained her ankle on stage, it was a production so during the quick change that we had together back stage she sat on the floor and cried while I helped her get changed. In 57 seconds we completely changed costumes and shoes and made sure her makeup wasn't running. After our competition was over she found out that she should have never danced on it and that she would be out for 3 weeks. Regardless my friend did not regret her decision.
My brother did the same thing his freshmen year at Bergen. He has fractured his ankle during a game and bruised his knee pretty bad but no one even knew he was hurt until the end because he wanted to finish the game.
It has just become normal to push through the pain but I think it is a problem. It is bad for you to push through serious pain because it actually causes more problems.
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ReplyDeleteI recently joined the gym, so this article has become extremely significant for me. I go everyday, but only for about an hour and that is because after about an hour I feel like I've worked hard enough and if I continue I will be over-working myself. As I progress in exercising I will increase the amount of time I spend and the rigorousness of my work-outs. I think that in order to avoid injury, one must start small and work their way up. My friend has been going to the gym since May and he is able to do abs for a lot longer than I can because he has been working at it for months. I stop earlier than him so I don't pull anything. It's all about knowing when to stop. I agree with this article and think the solution is taking it slow!
ReplyDeleteI definitely think I learned the lesson of good and bad pain the hard way. I am the type of person that continues to push through the pain and not tell anyone even when I am on the verge of tears. I've had knee issues for most of my life, and when I was at a volleyball tournament one weekend, my right knee (the bad one) started killing me, badly enough for me to not be able to put all of my weight on it. I ignored the pain and my coaches and finished the game. After the adrenaline wore off, I couldn't stand, let alone play. After that, I couldn't play for the rest of the tournament and soon after had to get an MRI. At the time, I knew the pain was worse than what I usually had to deal with, but I blew it off because I figured that's what an athelete is supposed to do. Now I know better, and when I start to feel that "bad pain" I stop and even rest my knee for a couple days just to make sure. You have to know your own body and not test its limits, and this means differentiating between good and bad pain.
ReplyDeleteI believe that pain is not an essential part of fitness. The very aches and shooting pains that may annoy us when we’re trying to work out are in fact sending our body a message that we have reached our limit. If we do not pay attention to what our body is telling us, exercise may have adverse effects, rather than healthful and helpful effects. For example, the summer before my freshman year, I ran two miles every morning in order to get in shape for volleyball tryouts. As a violinist and pianist, I was never a runner, and I will never be a runner. As I ran every day, I ignored pain in my left knee, and figured it was just part of exercising. I was surely mistaken.
ReplyDeleteAfter volleyball season was underway, I couldn’t even bring myself to walk without shooting pain in my knee. I had in fact damaged the muscles in my knee by going past my limit. If I had listened to my body many years ago, I wouldn’t have to deal with sharp pain in my knee even to this very day. For this reason, I have started to listen to my body, and whenever I feel discomfort while exercising at any location, I switch exercises. Pain is the primary way your body tells you that you’re doing something. Therefore, these distress signals should not be ignored, and our limits shouldn’t be pushed too far; otherwise, we end up having to live with pain the rest of our lives.
I don’t believe that working out has to be painful. In fact, I think that if it is painful, you are probably doing something wrong. It is very easy to mess up the proper form of exercising and for this reason we should probably learn how to do different exercises from an expert.
ReplyDeleteI take a yoga class at the gym and the instructor always says to find a median between ease and work. Of course you don’t want to just be sitting there and not feeling any stretch, but if you over work it, you will probably hurt yourself. When I took dance, an instructor always said that it’s not how far your reach it’s how long you hold it for. With time, your flexibility increases therefore it is better to hold a small stretch than to overwork your limit and pull a muscle.
Mentally, we don’t like this idea because we live in a society where we have to be the best and work to the best of our ability. We like to see immediate results in what we do, like stretching the furthest. However in order to learn we must build up to it. You need to know your own body’s limit and feel when something seems wrong. No one can tell you what your limit is so you have to have self control and not push yourself too much.
I don't believe that working hard has to be painful. Instead, I think that working hard distracts you from pain. I think that exercise needs to be done to the best of your ability, but doesn't have to hurt in order to maintain a maximum performance. An exerciser should stop working out when the pain is unbearable. It should be a good pain, not a hurting pain. For example, last year I had rotator cuff tendinitis and during swim practice I had to distinguish when the pain was from working hard and when the pain was from the injury. When the pain was from the injury, I knew I had to stop working out.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a good fitness debate to bring up. Personally, being an "injury magnet," I tend to ignore the pain and keep playing and now that I'm older, I can see how it has really hurt me. In the eighth grade I injured my knee and ended up on crutches for what seemed like forever. The only reason that it turned into such a long time on crutches was because I had played through a soccer game on the injury. Last year alone, I was in a boot 3 times, on crutches for 2 weeks, and spent many appointments with the doctor for a stress fracture from track. It was a disaster. Had I known when to "take it easy" and take a break chances are I would still be running track my senior year. My mindset of associating pain with my fitness has clearly not ended on a good note. Part of track itself IS to push yourself to the limit and to reach that "runner's high" and countless times I've seen girls throw up, pass out, and out for entire seasons with injuries that were preventable. Especially in this day and age with the added pressure to stay thin and fit, I feel as though many people don't know where to draw the line.
ReplyDeleteI think that when someone wants to start exercising seriously, they need to know their body and its limitations. Everyone should definitely know the difference between the burning sensation in your legs after doing many lunges, versus the sensation of pulling a muscle. This is why I think personal training is so important for beginning exercise. The trainer knows how far you should push yourself--and will teach you the right moves for your body. I had to distinguish pain over the summer when my foot began falling asleep while running. Although it was more annoying than painful, I made sure I wouldn't injure myself by continuing to run on it. When told by a doctor I had simply pinched a nerve, I continued running, and my pain eventually subsided.
ReplyDeleteWorking hard does mean pushing yourself--but so the pain the next day is a good pain of soreness, not of injury.
There is definitely a fine line between good and bad pain when exercising. Good pain is when you feel sore from working and utilizing muscles that aren't used on a regular basis. Bad pain is pain felt when there is actually something wrong with a bone, joint, etc. Exercising does not even have to be painful at all, even if it is a great exercise. If an athlete is in good shape, it will take a lot more to make them sore from a workout.
ReplyDeleteA good way to decipher if pain is good or bad is to see how long the pain endures. If the pain continues on for a while even after giving it some rest, then it is most likely an injury. Soreness from an exercise goes away within a day or two, unlike serious injuries.
When I used to do gymnastics, my coach always used to tell me "no pain no gain." However, pain in gymnastics more likely than not meant a serious injury. This led to so many of my friends getting injured from overuse. People need to learn to listen to their bodies because pain is usually a red flag for something wrong in your body.
I think that you do have to feel some degree of "bad" pain when exercising. As a runner, I think there is definitely a difference between "good" and "bad" pain. I never feel like I've had a good run if I haven't felt some degree of pain. My coach doesn't have any sympathy for me if I complain that my legs are burning or if my breathing is heavy, but as soon as I tell him that I have a sharp pain in my shin or knee, or if I need my inhaler, he makes me stop running without thinking twice. I think a lot of times, athletes are too worried to say anything to their coach about the "bad" pain they feel. People fear that they will look like a baby or that they will fall out of shape. Another problem is that the "bad" pain idea causes some runners to make excuses. There have been plenty of times where I've felt dead during a run, or I just didn't think I could finish. Whenever I used to doubt myself, my breathing suddenly "just wouldn't feel right." In reality, my breathing was fine, but panicking about it ended up sending me into real asthma and caused my fake pain to turn into real "bad" pain. Over time, I've learned to avoid sending myself into patterns of "bad" pain. I found that if I remain calm, focused, and relaxed, I can keep myself feeling only "good" pain. It's definitely hard to tell the difference between the two, but it is very possible.
ReplyDeleteI do no think that working out has to be painful. People who are training for a sport or who have a background in conditioning work out routines are much more rigorous and have a higher pain level. Most of the time they either have experience in conditioning or have a trainer who has been taught how to properly work each muscle group. Overexercising is a serious problem and often times happens when the person has not been taught how to work out. It is important to listen to your body and not ignore the pain. Our body naturally releases adrenaline when we exercise which helps us push through the pain during a hard work out, pain becomes dangerous when we ignore the signals our body is sending us.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that some pain is to be expected during workouts, it is not necessary to endure anything near tears. I know I personally "run through the pain" because I have shin splints, but I take care of them and ice them correctly. I believe that many people definitely try to overlook small pains and aches because they believe it just comes with the territory, which is not always true. Back pain especially should not be ignored because the spine is so fragile. I think the best way to make sure your pain is good pain is to work with a certified personal trainer that has studied the body and is prepared to help you work your body, and not fatigue it.
ReplyDeleteThis article is extremely relatable since I am a dancer and have been taking classes since I was 3 years old. I definitely agree that dancers are notorious for ignoring pain. If we were to stop whenever we felt pain then we would never gain any flexibility or strength. Not many people can naturally do splits. It is a learned skill for most but it takes alot of painful stretch to get there. Like splits, many dance positions are not comfortable and are very unnatural for our bodies. Due to this dilemma, dancers must adapt to pain. This does raise the issue of when is it to much. That fine line between good pain and bad pain becomes a blur when you are accustomed to ignoring the feeling altogether. Summer going into sophomore year I had to get knee surgery because of an injury I received in dance classes. My injury was very minor but I was in denial that there was an issue so I continued to dance on it was if the pain was nonexistent. For me, I recognized the pain but I would not bring myself to accept it as serious because I simply could not fall behind in my training. Because my lack attention to my injury, I ended up going passed the point of return and surgery was my only option. Because of this experience, I had to re learn my physical boundaries and, while I still push myself, I now know the difference between bad and good pain. I am just as dedicated but am now more cautious. Uncomfortablity is inevitable when it comes to working out but pain is inexcusable and must be taken seriously.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that we as young women need to recognize and react properly to both "good" pain and "bad" pain. Whenever I'm exercising, whether it's going for a run or working out at the gym, I find myself trying to block out any signs my body may be giving me to just get through what I'm doing. I think most people do the same thing, and this can be dangerous at times. If my knee unusually hurts or my ankle feels uncomfortable during a run, I simply tell myself that I must be working that part of my body more today and that the pain is inevitable. I keep running, potentially bringing on more damage to whatever may be hurting.
ReplyDeleteI never really thought about the severe problems that can be happening during a work out, and I'll be more aware now moving forward. Rather than tune out what my body is trying to tell me, I'll pay more attention to see that maybe I should take a break or walk it off for a little while. No work out is worth painful or permanent injury, and this is something we all need to be reminded of from time to time. There certainly CAN be gain without pain.