Your Workouts Aren’t Supposed to Hurt

It sometimes seems like everyone that exercises is constantly in some sort of pain. Just ask anyone who lifts and you’ll likely hear complaints of low back pain, tight hips, stiff shoulders, or some other nagging injury from a good percentage of them. That kind of makes you wonder: is the way we work out even all that good for our bodies? 

The answer, it turns out, isn’t as simple as yes or no. To dig a little deeper, we caught up with author, movement coach, and founder of The Align Method, Aaron Alexander. 

Back to the Basics 

A 2014 study surveyed over a thousand non-elite sports participants and found that over half of them (56%) reported sustaining some sort of exercise-related injury. For an activity that’s supposed to be healthy, that sure doesn’t seem like an encouraging statistic.

But according to Alexander, these common injuries typically boil down to gymgoers and athletes not understanding how to properly move. “If you don’t understand the basic, consistent principles that overlay yoga or dance or martial arts or high-level weightlifting, or any of that, then they’re all consistent threats. It’s the same body in every modality, and so understanding those fundamental principles is invaluable,” he explains. 

“It’s kind of coming back and honing in on how do I train, instead of just how much do I train,” says Alexander, who realized the importance of focusing on the basics over 20 years ago. “I started off as an athlete that jacked myself up through training really poorly. It’s been a long journey of breaking myself down, training imbalances, and repairing the kind of havoc that I created in my own body.”

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It’s understandable how many of us end up with these injuries. We get into a routine with our workouts, and can’t be bothered to address small, nagging issues – until they grow into something that can’t be ignored. 

It’s All About Prevention 

To get out of this vicious cycle, Alexander recommends focusing on the basics. “It’s just about coming back to some of the less impressive-to-look-at rehabilitation exercises like making sure the foot and ankle function properly; the knee is tracking properly; the hips are balanced; the spine, and the shoulders, and the wrists, and the neck, and so on. Just slow down a bit and really focus on your deficits as opposed to just continuing to add more and make the engine bigger when the rest of the system doesn’t support that.” 

It can be hard to slow down when all you want to do is get better, faster, and stronger, but taking the time to focus on the basics before an injury occurs is the key to preventing things from getting out of hand. 

“I think that most things come out of a product of necessity,” Alexander says. “But my suggestion is to create the change before the necessity.”

Simply put, don’t wait until it’s too late – address the problems before they become serious issues. Your workouts aren’t supposed to hurt. If you feel pain in your back, hips, shoulders, or knees when you exercise, it’s time to dig into where the problem is stemming from. Leaving it and “pushing through,” as so many of us do, only creates more severe problems in the future.

If you’re struggling with pain or mobility issues, take some time and dig into prehab exercises. These can help prevent injuries before they occur, improve your mobility, and help you gain strength. And if you’d rather someone just tell you what to do, Alexander offers a 6-week program that focuses on all his most effective tools and practices compiled into one place. 

The program offers a one-week free trial where participants receive a movement assessment to establish a base and then focuses on teaching fundamental mobility techniques. “The ethos of Align Method is teaching people how to make fitness who they are as opposed to a thing that they do,” Alexander says. 

“Your whole day is an opportunity to move and feel better,” he continues, explaining his program. “If you understand how to function your body properly – and most people just haven’t received that education – I provide that education in a pretty simplistic way, and then help to rehabilitate people that have moved improperly in a pretty imbalanced environment. Most folks are sitting in chairs all the time, looking at a computer screen, and spending a lot of time inside. The body just starts to collapse at various different micro and macro levels. It’s like a rehabilitation guide to bring the body back to functioning optimally in a really simplistic way.”

And if you find yourself feeling skeptical about dropping the weight and focusing on form, Alexander simply says, “just give it some time, and eventually you’ll find it necessary if you train long enough. If you’re skeptical, you probably just haven’t injured yourself yet or haven’t noticed the possible negative repercussions of training the same kind of basic dysfunctional way for a long time.” 

You can sign up for the Align Method here, or follow Aaron @AlignPodcast. You can also listen to the Align Podcast on Spotify and Apple.