Question is my routine is causing pain? Should I keep going? Or try a different routine?

Great question to ask. The answer is not really black and white. Is there a pain? Yes or no?

Putting a polarizing answer, hate Does it hurt or not, could actually be setting you up for failure because there's a scale to this, there's gray area for this.

So so bear with me think of it like this. Let's, what we're actually all doing here is we are training our system we're in training now doesn't mean we're Olympic athletes. But it means we are training our body to do something different, to be stronger, to change the way that it's capable of moving and feeling.

So we're all training, training, to be better training, to move better training, to feel better training to perform better and training to be able to do life, the way we want to do it more. Just like an athlete trains and to perform to feel better. Now think about this for an athlete. So it makes sense to you, an athlete trains to perform better. And it's really common for an athlete to work out.

Just like it's common for you to do routines that push and challenge your body. And this is what creates adaptation. It's the training and giving your body a little bit more than it's really capable of that triggers the adaptation that we all need to heal, get better, stronger, faster, more capable, increased function, etc.

So your question, now, knowing that sometimes, pain and discomfort is actually a sign that we're stimulating, because an athlete is not pain free, it's, it's always subjecting your body to more stress than it's currently going through. And that doesn't mean every training session feels great. That doesn't mean every workout is pain free.

That doesn't mean you leave the gym and always feel amazing, because we're doing something healthy trainings hard on the body. And what we're doing right now, though, we're choosing a gentle approach, if you've got a very strong dysfunction, or a very severe dysfunction, even gentle training could could feel like a really big impact on your body.

So the question knowing that sometimes pain or discomfort is actually a sign that we are stimulating our soft tissue structures to change now really becomes what level of pain is acceptable after my routine, and what level of pain means we should change our strategy and stop doing our routine and do something different?

And the third question that we'll get to is, how can we train to do these movements with a certain intensity to stimulate our body, but not overdo it and send us on account for the next four or five days, when I was training for an ultra marathon? What I learned was, it didn't make sense to have this huge run on a Sunday and beat my body into the ground. And then train so hard that I literally couldn't move for five days, and I couldn't run for five days, I was losing progress. And I had to learn that running, doing those big runs. It wasn't about the run that day, it was about being able to show up the next day, and just going hard enough.

So I could show up the next day and do it again. And again. And again. And that sweet spot of giving yourself just enough intensity to make a difference, but not too much to where we have to take days off. Oh, that's the magic spot. And your ability to find that is going to determine how much better we get and how fast that happens.

So let me break down that question. First part, what level of pain is acceptable?

It's always hard to put numbers on pain, but we have to I've got to give you structure to this. So let's look at a scale of one to 10, 10 being I need to go to the emergency room.

One being upgrade, no pain, okay, that's our scale. If you have about a two to a four out of 10, meaning you feel pain and discomfort, it's noticeable. You're aware of it, you're cognizant, you're cognitively mindful of it. It's on your radar. But that pain is not severely altering the way you have to move. It's probably okay to continue doing your routine.

If I was running, I can run with a two to four pain level. But if the pain level starts to get up to like a five or six if I have to start like consciously changing my movement patterns to avoid injury, if I'm if I'm moving with hesitation and restriction and that thing is barking at me and I'm having to like alter my way of movement in my day or while doing the exercise. It's Oh, that's probably not the thing that I want to push through.

That's my body saying, I think we're past adaptation, we're now entering injurious mode. So if the pain you're experiencing is high enough to where it's really on your mind, and it's changing your movement, if it's above a four at a 10, you have one of two options. Move on to the next option one, move on to the next routine, this isn't for you, the one you're doing is directly challenging your specific dysfunction, too much. Move on, take notes, this sucked, lift me up, created a flare up, this was my problem hated this exercise. Just take whatever notes you can put it in the system. Give that routine a low rating. And let's move on to the next routine.

Let's see if we can improve your movement in a different way a different routine, different exercises on different day. Okay. Now, the third thing to consider is maybe, just maybe you're like me, where, unfortunately, everything hurt, everything was gonna hurt, my back was broken. I was chronically and severely disabled. I couldn't even stand for a couple of minutes without wanting to cry. There was no sunshine and rainbows and aromatherapy candles, there was no grace in this process, there was no gentleness, every.

And I know I'm sounding dramatic. But if I can recall correctly, every single movement sucked. And I was always anticipating pain.

So maybe, just maybe that's the level of function, that's our starting point. And everything is going to hurt because our dysfunction is that severe. Or maybe just maybe you don't know yet how to manage your own intensity. So this routine that should have been gentle and healing and facilitating a change with your nervous system. Maybe you brought a ton of force and power because you thought, hey, my problems big. So I need to bring a lot to this.

In my experience of coaching a building a one on one practice having guided 1000s of people through this program. In my experience of 12 years doing this. I'm going to pull this number out, but I'd have to say it's pretty darn close. Probably 90% of the reason why somebody would hurt after these routines is because they're trying too hard. And that's not a deflecting, that's not a shifting, that's a binding you to reflect your own experience with these routines.

When I would work with people one on one in person, and I'd give a routine and we were talking and it was casual. And I was instructing Hey, go like Go Easy, make it simple. Breathe, you don't have to force range of motion, there was a great result. When I would give these routines the same routine that worked and people were on their own. Then 911 Emergency flared up can't move. It worked when I was with you. And now it's not working at home. Okay, I'd go to their house and I'd say show me exactly what you're doing. And they would recreate the exercises and they were holding their breath. They were clenching their jaw, their brow was furrowed. They were like fighting their own nervous system.

No wonder we're flared up, we're pushing. We're not training safety. We're not training function. We're actually just trying to use force and power. And the reality is is like when you fight your nervous system, one of us is going to lose to either you or their nervous system. And the problem is those are one in the same.

So my first recommendation is if you're really experiencing that much pain at the end of your routine, try 50% less range of motion than you think you should do. If I'm giving you full, you know, shoulder motions, try half almost to the point where it's like this is dumb.

What am I doing? I feel nothing great.

You feel nothing doing movement? Hell yeah.

That's where we start. Let's make it easy. I want you to feel nothing. I don't want you to barrel past restriction and dysfunction and pain and symptoms, every movement. The point is to make it easy. So you can actually teach your nervous system. Hey, movement safe again. Motor neurons, muscles, nerves, you all can work together again.

Cool. Let's let's bring harmony and peace back into movement. Let's stop forcing with friction our way through. So my first piece of advice is instead of just jumping ship onto the next routine, which you can do, you're in the driver's seat.

This is 100% your decision. I'm here to empower you and guide you. You're the only person who is hardwired to your nervous system. You're the only person who can Feel what you can feel, which means you're the only one who can make these hard choices.

Do I move on? Do I stay? Do I push through this?

You and You alone can only make that choice. But before you make that choice, let's try it again, with half of your range of motion, half of your intensity. And does your experience change, maybe you're still in pain, but it's less? Well, you just learned a hell of a lesson.

You just learned that how you're doing exercises has a huge impact on your body.

The one golden nugget I want, I hope I give you more than one. But where I'm going with this is, for five years, the stuff that I teach people. Now, the stuff that didn't work for me, became the thing that now worked for me what changed? was a time doing it. Maybe it was this, it was how I was doing it. I felt so much pain and dysfunction that my problem felt intense. So what do we do as human beings do, we bring the same intensity to it. And we never like learn how to parent ourselves and coach herself and in a society not to get on a soapbox that has no pain, no gain, push through the pain.

We're in grind, mode, work, work, work, work, work. If that's what you're approaching to restore chronic movement impairments, we're not going to get very far before you just keep running into flare ups. We have to take a gentler, simpler approach. One analogy that I think makes sense for those of you who struggle with your relationship to intensity, like I did, it's okay to admit that, and it's okay, if you don't even know what I'm talking about.

I'm planting seeds for you to now your homework is going to see what is your relationship with intensity? Why are you bringing more force and effort to these exercises than needed? Is it because we really urgently want results? Or can we just like chill and allow our nervous system to relax?

Think about it like this, you know, if you all have pain, that's conflict, right? Pains conflict. Things are not working the way that they should. I want everybody here to consider a relationship. If you're either in one or you've been in one. When there's conflict. How does it work when you bring force and intensity to it?

In my experience, not well, ever, not once has that ever worked? Maybe you feel hurt. You know, anger isn't a human emotion. And there's no shame behind that. But like it only gets you so far. At some point, you have to learn how to de escalate conflict, if you're going to have a successful partnership in a relationship, and if you can't learn how to de escalate conflict, how are we going to learn how to de escalate conflict internally, maybe that's one of the core problems that you that you have that brought you here.

Sure the exercises are going to help. But if we can't deescalate our own nervous system, and we're always creating conflict, and we don't know how to speak to herself and coach herself and parent ourselves in those moments of need. And it's all negativity.

And God, this sucks. This is exactly why I can't do this. And of course, I'm going to feel pain today. I'm in pain every day. And this is what makes me not intimate with my partner. And this is what prevents me from doing the things. Like if we start this gnarly cycle of conflict escalation, there is not an exercise in a world that your nervous system is going to respond to until we deal with the emotionality of it. And that could be another multi hour long conversation. And I hope that just kind of opens a doorway into understanding emotionality has a huge, huge thing with this.

Last thing I'll say on that is, you know, if you play with intensity, and you feel like you're already very masterful and skillful at that, and playing with intensity doesn't help. Great. You just learned a valuable lesson.

There's usually an answer for all of these experiences that you have, there's no experience that is left like a dead end. It's really an if then model and that's what this program is. If this happens, then let's do that. If this happens, then let's do that.

It's if then it's no more dense. So whatever experience that you're having, if we can allow ourselves to have it, take a step back and say, Okay, what what just happened? And what are the questions I need to ask to like take a different approach.

Yeah, it takes work everybody. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes patience, but it's worth it. Strategy is going to solve these problems, not force, not exercises strategy. The exercises are just tools for us to execute that strategy.