My Experience With Chronic Pain - Pain Doesn't Have to Win
Everyone experiences aches and pains. It’s part of being alive. Pain is extremely complex, and I don’t claim to have any universal answers for anyone regarding pain and what to do about it. This post is just my experience this year, AND IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. The fact that I even have to put that disclaimer in here says something about our society.
Some pain seems to immediately make sense. But what happens when you seemingly do everything right and you still have persistent pain?
For some background, I’ve been lifting for about 14 years. I’ve only ever had one semi-major injury, but I’ve never had to have anything surgically repaired. I’ve had little overuse pains before, but never anything like this.
Late spring/early summer of this year (2018), I started experiencing low back and hip pain. It came on gradually, usually moving around from one side to the other. It would hurt for a while, then suddenly go away, then come back stronger. It never got to the point that I saw a medical professional, but I certainly could have justified it. I missed two days at work because I literally couldn’t sit up out of bed. That isn’t good for anyone, but when you’ve got to wear a duty belt for 10 hours, that’s a no go. Tying my boots would take 5 minutes. Most days, I’d have to hold my breath and strain just to reach them.
I took time off training, modified training, etc. It would get better until I thought it was gone, and then bam, it would come roaring back. This happened several times. I got to the point that I had no idea what more to do.
I was frustrated and angry. I’ve been training a while, I thought. I have education, I manage people’s training professionally! Why can’t I figure out what’s going on with my own body?
Compounding that anger was the inability to move toward the goals I’d set for myself. I had numbers I wanted to hit, and not only was I not moving forward, I was regressing. I was beating my head against the wall. Without my goals in the gym, I didn’t feel like I was moving forward in anything. Not a good mentality to attach to training, but that’s how I felt at the time.
During that time, I was also dealing with a lot of life and work stress. The pain just added fuel to the fire. I began to dread ANY training or activity because of the pain. Even if I wasn’t in pain, I didn’t want it to come back. But it didn’t feel better when I rested either. Sometimes I thought I was just going to have this much pain permanently.
I started reading everything I could find about pain science. I started learning that pain isn’t all in our bodies or all in our heads, but is a complex interaction between the brain and body. That interaction is influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors that all play a role in how we experience and interpret our pain. Just resting and foam rolling doesn’t fix the problem.
I started reframing my expectations and interpretations of my pain. Instead of expecting to CRUSH EVERY WORKOUT, I started making my goal each day to be one simple baby step forward. Sometimes that step was only learning a little more about my pain. If I regressed in the gym, I reframed it as progress. “Well, now I can learn one more thing about my pain and what seems to make it worse. Now I’m one more step to getting better.” That creates a platform for change, instead of being frustrated about a number. If I made progress toward being pain-free or was able to push a lift more than last week, now I knew something I did right.
Baby steps.
When I was in pain, I began working to interpret it as a threat signal from my brain, rather than just something being “broken.” We’re told constantly that X physical problem will directly produce pain. “Your back pain is from disc degeneration.” Sure, the disc may be part of the equation, but lots of people have tears, disc degeneration, and other “injuries” and don’t have any pain. I’ve experienced this myself. I have a partial labral tear in my right shoulder that has zero effect on me whatsoever. Pain is more complex than that.
I realized that my brain was interpreting all the signals it was getting (work stress, life stress, and physical stress) as a massive threat, and in turn was trying to signal me back. I approached my pain with curiosity rather than frustration. Rather than focusing on what hurt and all the things I couldn’t do or achieve, I began thinking about what I could do and what had been going on in my life (both inside and outside the gym) to cause me to be so frustrated. Instead of catastrophizing and worrying about the future, I focused on today.
I also just flat-out accepted that sometimes pain was going to happen. It didn’t mean I was broken or that I had done irreparable damage to my body. It just meant I was human.
I began to feel better. My pain didn’t just disappear. But I started being able to train productively. I stopped dreading movement and activity. I was able to think rationally and start moving forward.
In my next post, I’ll discuss specific training modifications I made to make progress. Just realize that if you’re in pain, changing training is part of the equation, but it isn’t the entire solution. If you’re like me, addressing your fears, expectations, rationalizations, and interpretations of what’s going on in your body can put you on a path to success.
I’m no doctor, but I can help you navigate your frustrations and difficulties with fitness. If you’re looking for a fitness trainer in the Mt Juliet/Hermitage/Nashville TN area, online fitness training, or just need some advice to get your fitness program started, contact me