Why you shouldn’t ignore pain

When you exercise regularly, hopping from one gym session, run or training cycle to the next, it’s normal to pick up a few aches along the way, but there are many reasons why you shouldn’t ignore pain. It’s a question of what kind.

Post-exercise muscle soreness (or to use its proper name, delayed onset muscle soreness, commonly known as DOMS) is to be expected if you’ve worked hard and pushed yourself, and will decrease as your body adapts to your training.

Regular foam rolling, stretching, and strength and conditioning will help, and for brave long-distance runners, a 10-12 minute ice bath (as recommended by Mo Farah) can do wonders after a long run.

But what about real pain? Not just that satisfyingly sore feeling after a good workout. Most marathon runners won’t get through a whole 16 weeks of training without a few tag-along niggles or injuries, whether big or small. We’ll often train through it, hoping it’ll go away on its own after a bit of rest, and dose ourselves up on ibuprofen and other painkillers to dull the noise. (Incidentally, read why running on anti-inflammatories is a bad idea here.

Sometimes, if we adjust our schedule to exercise different muscle groups and give things a chance to repair, discomfort subsides (maybe to a tolerable level rather than disappearing altogether) and we carry on training, until the next flare-up.

Enough is enough

The question is, how do we know when that persistent ‘niggle’ of ours is enough of a concern to call the physio? Tom Goom, senior physiotherapist at The Physio Rooms in Brighton, and author of RunningPhysio.com, says if in doubt, get checked out. ‘Minor aches and pains that settle quickly are often little to worry about but consistent problems, severe pain or injury that prevents you running or training should be checked out,’ says Tom. ‘Signs of tissue damage such as swelling, bruising, reduced joint range of movement or sensations of giving way are also warning signs to seek professional advice.’

When working hard towards an race or training goal it’s easy to push these warning signs to the back of our minds and plough on full steam ahead, but actually, rest and recovery are just as important – if not more so – than the physical training itself.

All too often, listening to our bodies and resting when needed is a tough lesson to learn. If we can’t run we look for other ways to get that endorphin fix. Maybe we’ll go cycling instead. Can we go to the gym? What about Bikram or a swim?

Rest hard, train harder

The truth is, sometimes it’s best to just do nothing at all, and allow our bodies the time to rest, recover and absorb the training. After all, your muscles don’t actually grow or adapt during training, they do so while you rest, once they are allowed the time to repair. If you don’t rest you never give your body this chance.

Regular massage, strength and conditioning, cross training, and knowing when to rest will all help towards recovery, and it’s also key to not overtrain.

If you’re carrying persistent niggles that aren’t going away, getting progressively worse or are making each session painful, seek professional advice before they turn into a proper injury and put you out of action altogether.

There’s nothing worse than actually being injured and stopped in your tracks from doing what you love. Listen to your body, and hopefully that day will never come.