6 Tips to Make Exercise Less Painful

Exercise without aggravating injuries

​“No pain, no gain” is often not the best advice when it comes to exercise. Mild muscle soreness from a good work out is ok, but when an injury has occurred, aggravating exercises can make it worse or prolong healing. It is important to restore activity as soon as possible to an injured area so here are some tips for exercising when in pain due to an injury.

1. Super slow stretching – when an area has been injured, even stretches can be quite painful. One solution is to slow down, way down. Imagine stretching so slowly that someone watching you may not even see you move. Stretching this slowly gives the muscle a chance to relax into the stretch rather than wanting to tighten up and fight the stretch. How slow can you go?
2. Temporarily limit your range of motion – even when an area is injured, there is still a comfortable range in which you can move so stay within that range. If turning your head all the way hurts, turn it halfway through the normal range until you can move further without pain. Keep moving as much as your range allows.
3. Don’t move while exercising – this takes the last recommendation a step further by not moving at all. This is called isometric exercise. For example, if you can’t turn your head due to pain you may still be able to activate the muscles of neck without moving your head. Just push against your fingers or another object with the amount of force you can tolerate (starting light and increasing resistance).
4. Non-weight bearing exercises – sometimes it’s just too painful to fight gravity, so don’t. Lie down or sit for your exercises. Or hop into the pool to exercise in a weightless environment. Some of the most complicated back injuries with disc problems are those that respond best to non-weight bearing exercises.
5. Walk – if your injury doesn’t prevent you from walking, then walk. Walking is the best exercise that works the whole body. Everything benefits from walking.
6. Exercise the other side – if it’s too painful to turn to the right then start with turns to the left. Even working the opposite (healthy) limb can have a positive impact on the injured one due to effects on sensorimotor integration of the brain (how the brain senses things and moves parts of the body). Ten or twenty repetitions of movement on the left side can be enough to make those same repetitions more tolerable on the injured right side.

With all these exercise tips, remember to start light and easy. As you see improvement and the exercises become more tolerable, gradually increase them. Lying around in bed is one of the worst things you can do. If you are struggling with a lingering injury, be sure to seek evaluation and treatment starting with conservative non-drug care like chiropractic first.

---